Piddles

"In recent weeks, intelligence operatives have arrested 14 squirrels within Iran's borders." - Islamic Republic News Agency

I'm up to my haunches in a land of hot sand and strange languages, hunted for who I am. Five months ago, I was in the shade, living in a nice sugar maple outside of Langley when I got caught in a Hav-A-Heart trap. I didn't need that Dixie cup of dry-roasted peanuts; I just wanted them very, very, very badly. Well, I got the peanuts, a dart in the side of the neck, a speech about how great America is, and a ticket to Iran. I've been here for the last couple weeks in the employ of the Central Intelligence Agency. Let's say my name is Mr. Piddles.

*CHITTER!*TIK!*

The Iranians are not bad people, there's just like Americans but with a completely wrong belief system.

I'm not the only one in country, the Company sent 14 of us. I knew all of them growing up, just with different names. We don't use those old names anymore. Part of the training is forgetting your past. My only question is why use us, the ones who got caught? Wouldn't our free-roaming, more elusive pals been better suited for this kind of job?

I can't talk about what I'm doing in Tehran. The Company doesn't like loud mouths and all it would take is one bad acorn to shut me up forever.

**SQUEAK!!*CHITTER!**

It didn't take us long to realize the Company's big mistake. There are no squirrels in Tehran except the 14 of us.

*CHITTER!*

There's 13 of us left. Mr. Peeper's ate a bad fig from a cart at the bazaar. Mr. Jingles said we're better off without Peepers. My hate for Mr. Jingles only grows.

I can tell you why there aren't any squirrels in Iran. There aren't any goddamn acorns. I tried eating curried pistachios and ending up pissing fire for two days. I hate the people here, they're weird and loud. They also tend to more than their fair share of fist shaking.

The light hurts my eyes and the dryness is eating up my sinuses.

*TIK!*TIK!*

I keep seeing monkeys around the markets here. They're the biggest losers in the animal kingdom. Opposable thumbs and all they've figured out is how to pick fleas off each other. A waste of tree space, if you ask me.

I was watching television today and saw an Iranian newscaster with a picture of a squirrel with an American flag behind him. The squirrel appeared to have television antenna coming out of its ass. I said a silent thank you for the miniaturization of digital technology.

The Iranian secret police have staked out every public park in the country. To me, palms are just not trees.

I spent three hours hiding under a fez.

*CHITTER! CHITTER! *

I'm on my own now. The Company, as promised, has disavowed any knowledge of this operation. I saw Senor Dribbles a week ago under a cashew cart in the central market. We agreed that it was best to split up. Two squirrels are a crowd in Iran.

I could have been out of this hellhole a week ago if it weren't for my indecisiveness crossing roads. I've always had this problem. I'm somewhere in the middle of a street when I start thinking about life, my family, acorns. Brenda, my case officer in Langley, said this would be the death of me. I'm beginning to think she's right. All I know is that everyday when the minaret's loudspeakers announce the call to prayer and the pious face Mecca, I'm tucking my bushy tail between my legs and bounding in the opposite direction.

*FURK! FURK!*

_______________________________________________________________________

A Criticism of the Preceding Story

The author of the above story is obviously an unrepentant moron. The piece is filled from start to finish with grievous factual inaccuracies. It disgusts me that the writer has not done the most basic research, and when I say basic I mean sources such as A Children's First Abridged Dictionary for Dummies or the Disney animated film, Aladdin. Some of the errors:

1. The city of Tehran is not located in the desert, but rather among snow-covered mountains in Northern Iran. It is unforgivable that the author did not know this. He should be ashamed for presenting this story for public consumption.

2. The Tehranian landscape is not covered by palm trees. Tehran is a major metropolitan area, not an oasis in the middle of the Gobi Desert. If the author's life goal is to be entirely ignorant of the world, then mission accomplished.

3. This mistake truly disappoints me as the fine people of Iran are not even in the top 10 of angriest nationalities (They are actually 11th). Just a side note, the angriest nation is Denmark. The Danes are known for a common irrationality fueled by ignorance, fear, and Aquavit. At any moment, including the one you are reading these words, there are thousands of Danes in the streets of Copenhagen fighting each other with bottles and broken chairs.

4. The author's ignorance of culture and place is appalling. Not only are there acorns in Tehran, but they are the city's leading source of oak growth.

5. I have come to realize that anyone who would include this many errors in a manuscript is most probably suffering from some form of diminished mental capacity. How could we denounce someone who cannot even summon the brainpower to know that the fez is traditional Moroccan headwear? Obviously, the author is trying as hard as he can and should be congratulated for this flawed attempt. The word that best describes an author writing on a subject that he has clearly no knowledge of and has done no research on? Heroism.

Ninja Preparedness Guide

What to do in case a ninja is in your house

1. First of all, determine if a ninja is in your house. Is your home completely silent? Are all the windows and doors locked? If so, there is probably a ninja in your home.

2. It is best to not show fear with a ninja, but panicking inwardly is always suggested.

3. Have you tucked a cookie sheet under your shirt to protect against throwing stars? Sorry, that really should have been rule #1.

4. Don't call the police. Unless your local department has a ninja squad, they will be of no use to you.

5. Open a bag of potato chips and pour it on your floor. By removing a ninja's ability to move silently you might completely demoralize them.

6. Do you know karate? This might be a good time to use it.

7. Dial 9 and 1 on your phone. Prepare to push 1 again.

8. Ask yourself what you have done to anger this ninja in the first place. Is there anything you can say or do that will rectify this situation? No, probably not, I'm sorry I brought it up.

9. Have you ever thought about jumping out a window? This might be the time to try it. After landing, turn back at your house and shake your fist. This, your fist says, is not over. Then seek immediate medical attention.

Ninja Fun Facts: Most ninjas are water signs. There is a yearly ninja convention which last year attracted almost 2,000 ninjas to a seemingly empty ballroom.

Dear Sugarhugs,

You're probably wondering what happened to the condo. Well, sweetness, I was in the shower this morning, after you left for work, and I kept using that little sliver of soap in there until it was so infinitesimally tiny that I split an atom and the building imploded around me. 

I know what you're thinking, how does this happen to the same person twice? That's what I asked the Irish Spring people when I called them. Just like last time, they explained that it was impossible to damage an atom while using their soap. I told them they should tell that to Mr. Bumpers, a cat who will never be able to tell how wide things are because he lost his whiskers in an atomic explosion. Luckily, they put me through to Chuck Grundhoff. Remember him? He was the lawyer from last time. Anyway, Chuck said that'd he'd put a check in the mail for the damages. And I'm getting an extra ten thousand to never use Colgate-Palmolive products again, which is a plus. Chuck is a good guy; he even offered to call the Army radiation people for me.

I'm happy to say that all the pets in the building survived. I think, like earthquakes, animals can detect imminent atomic explosions. They were all out on the lawn waiting for me when I climbed out of the tub with Mr. Bumpers. I think Mr. Bumpers knew, too. I mean how often does a cat get into a shower with you and jump around scratching at your hands? Twice, I realize now.

Do me a favor and tell the neighbors that they won't be able to have any of their stuff back because it's been exposed to dangerous levels of atomic radiation.

I hope you had a good day at work. I'll give you a call as soon as the doctor removes Mr. Bumpers' claws from my genitals.

Love and cuddles,

Me

A potential scenario regarding the horrific crimes that have been committed in the last month

To start off, this is not a confession or an accusation. It's just a possibility.

It wasn't until I was standing under the bus shelter yesterday with the rain pouring down that I realized I recognized the three victims whose photos were on the front of the Post-Intelligencer. Their faces were also on the front of the Times, but that's a crappy paper with numerous spelling errors. Staring at their photos of the victims (on the P-I), I realized that I might know the thing that connected them all together, and that would be my dog and her tennis ball.

The first victim was a guy we had run into at the park. Him, his fat ass, and his dog, Max, whole stole my dog's tennis ball. I know it is ill-mannered to speak of a man who headless body was found jammed halfway through a doggie door, but this guy kept saying, "he's just playing," as Max taunted my dog, let's call her S, with her own tennis ball. For five minutes, S had sat motionless as Max played, motionless except for a slight, violent tic at the end of her tail. I noticed that they had found the guy's head half buried in an undisguised hole, but there was no mention of Max.

The second victim I feel terribly for, he seemed like a very nice guy when we met him. S dropped her tennis ball at his feet and he threw it for her a couple times. But then he did that fake throw thing a couple times and laughed. Now I believe that he was laughing with her, but watching a shadow pass over her face and seeing her expressive Labradorian eyebrows knit together ominously, I don't think S got the joke.

The third victim was a woman who had been playing tennis on the park. S had stood at the chain-link fence and watched a long volley as a stream of drool dripped from her mouth. As I pulled S away by her collar, her eyes never left that ball.

I mean maybe there were signs that something like this could happen when I adopted S three months ago. In a full animal shelter, she had been flanked by two empty cages, and the three pens across from her were vacant as well. That was in addition to the yellow caution tape perimeter. But right in the middle of all that was S, with her tennis ball between her feet and wagging her tail wildly. I just knew I had to adopt her when I saw her do her little happy dance as a shelter worker removed her from her cage with one of those ten-foot poles with a wire lasso on the end. The entire shelter staff had applauded as I took S out the front door. "God save you!" suggested a very nice lady. I'm not a religious person, but I do appreciate when someone tries to send one of their deities to watch my back. I gave her a thumbs-up.

Speaking of fingers, S did bite the top-third of my left index finger off last week, but that was a misunderstanding that I chalk up to natural canine instinct. Clearly, S was protecting her poop from me picking it up in a baggie. Either that, or she thought I was going to steal her tail.

Anyway, if (And that's a big IF!) my dog is responsible for these crimes I would not say she is necessarily what some would call a "bad dog." Misdirected? Yes. Evil? No. I mean, would an evil dog be house trained?

I will, of course, put a stop to all of this if S is responsible. The problem with dogs is that they only have something like two minutes of memory, so I'm sure if S killed these people she forgot it almost immediately. With dogs it's important to let them know they are doing something wrong the moment that they are doing something wrong. So, if I catch her killing somebody, I will discipline her. Just in case, I've started carrying a rolled up newspaper around with me on walks. If S goes for a jugular, I will respond with a firm thwack to her ass. That and a firm "NO!" Of that, I promise you.

Until that possibility happens and I have my doubts it will, I've suggested strongly that my housemate not wear his lime green sweater.

Down of the Dead

Dear Mr. Johnston,

As a motion picture producer, I think I’ve seen, or been told about, everything you can do in a movie. Which is why I started screaming obscenities in my backyard when I read the opening scene of your script Undeath from Above. I didn’t care about the dirty looks I was getting from my neighbors or the parents in my three-year old’s playgroup, because finally someone (you) had shown me something different, something new. Let me tell you, there are few things that I consider true genius. Velamints. Big Country’s hit single "In a Big Country". Leonardo Da Vinci’s Da Vinci Code. And now I’m adding you to this list. I mean you have this poor guy jumping out of an airplane. All he’s worrying about is if his parachute opens. What’s the absolute last thing in the world he is expecting? To be attacked by a zombie in mid-air. Nobody has ever done that. I mean when George Romero sees this movie he’s going to punch himself in the head. Rest assured that this concept is better than Jimmy Stewart finding rose petals in his pocket or Rocky Balboa killing that bionic Russian. I told my assistant that this first scene is like a perfect cheesecake. It’s the lightest thing I’ve ever tasted, like taking a bite out of an edible angel. Plus it’s got a graham cracker crust, none of that gingersnap crap. Which is too bad, because as good as the beginning of Undeath from Above is, the rest of it is like being hit in the crotch by a runaway moped.

Zombies falling from the sky? Fantastic. Their bodies hitting the ground and exploding like watermelons? Not so great. Really, the only people these zombies threaten are skydivers and anybody who isn’t looking up. Why the heck can’t you have one of these zombies hit a pillow factory or a trampoline? A bale of freaking hay or a soft tree might even work. What you need to remember is that once you have an intact zombie, the fun begins.

Besides the low zombie survival rate, I also have some other concerns. You know that scene where that little blond kid, the one eating the drippy popsicle, is watching as a tiny dot in the sky becomes a flailing zombie plunging through the clouds, and that groaning gets louder and louder until the zombie is impaled on a flagpole? Then the camera pans up and there is the American flag covered in goopy zombie guts? Here’s my question about that, what the hell? Are you making a political statement? Because if you are, don’t, I’ve already optioned a script called An American Zombie in Baghdad. Here's how we can fix that: what if the camera panned up and there’s no flag? Instead, flapping in the wind, is the zombie’s pants. Then you can have this impaled zombie moaning "paaaants". That way when you have the big zombie fight finale at the end (you’re going to have to add a zombie fight finale, by the way), you’ve got this pantless zombie still going "paaaaaaants". It brings the joke full circle. Kids are laughing their butts off in the movie theater, elbowing their friends, saying stuff like, "Remember that zombie from before? His pants were on the flagpole." Anyone can tell you, if there’s one thing that kids love it’s cyclical humor. You know what else the kids would like? If you had the heroine (who you’ll have to create, too) knock the zombie’s dick off with a broomstick. Just a suggestion.

By the way, I’ve explained that you’re writing this for the kids, right? I mean they are a zombie movie’s target audience. Reading your script gives me the feeling you’re writing for Scandinavians with Seasonal Affective Disorder. Which might account for why your characters are so unresponsive to the whole zombie crisis thing. I mean you have a guy hosing zombie guts out of his driveway and then he washes his car. Does he get crushed? No. Does he get attacked? Nope. Does he spend five minutes waxing his car? Yes. Do you know what the audience is doing at that point? They're getting a refund or sneaking off to another part of the multiplex. Why? Because zombie movies are not supposed to have ennui. You know what they should have? Eviscerations, disembowelments, random gouging, and comic decapitations. So get to work on that.

Oh, and another thing, at no point during a zombie film should a hero ever utter the lines, "I’m so tired," or "My calves are sore and tender." Remember, a "hero" is not just the guy we see the most, a hero needs to be doing things that involves a wildly swung shovel and a zombie face.

While you’re fixing up Undeath from Above, you might as well add some sexy zombies, or as I like to call them, ZILFs. What you’ve got to remember is that the kids of today are sick. They'd do it with a zombie, if they got half a chance and zombies existed. Really, if there were any justice, kids would all be declared mentally incompetent and institutionalized. As the father of two, I’m allowed to say stuff like that. Anyway, just remember that kids are tiny, crazy people with disposable income who like awesome movies about the undead, so let's make one.

Best,
Ken Trott, motion picture producer
LazerEyze Studios (Not affiliated with LazyEyes Pictures LLC)

P.S. How come nobody questions why the zombies are falling from the sky? I mean, sure, you have that priest who says, "I guess heaven is overflowing." What the frick? Heaven is full of zombies? If so, terrific, expand on that. Also, FYI, I'm changing the name of the film to Sky Zombies. It works better for Marketing.

The Weatherman

The Weatherman knew about Global Warming. I was standing there at the coffee shop by the station and I saw him read the article. Gretchen, my girlfriend, said that he might have been reading anything, a bombing in a country whose location I was unsure of, or that article about Seattle schools and their lead pipes making children stupider, stupider than if they had been running around naked since birth, animal children scraping bark from trees with their tiny fingers. But I knew the Weatherman had read the Global Warming article because it continued on page A-16 and that’s just where he turned, and as his brow furrowed in reading comprehension, he made a “hmph” sound, a kind of non-verbal ‘Who would have thought?’

I knew about the Weatherman reading the Global Warming article because I had gotten close to him, close enough that a day earlier, I had ironed his on-air ties and warmed up his BMW when it was cold outside. I had become his intern.

I had applied for the internship because I wanted to know how he could slap up all those happy, smiling magnetic suns onto the “Big Weather Board” while the Earth was in crisis. I wanted to know why he never spoke about Global Warming. This, after all, was the man who had originated the phrase “sun tease”. I had chosen the name “Geoffrey Sol” for my intern application.
“Sol? Like the sun in Mexico?” the Weatherman had asked as he had given me a technically perfect handshake.
“Exactly like the sun,” I answered “Speaking of the sun…”
“Or like the beer?” He asked as his eyebrows rose like helium balloons.
“Like the sun…”
“I love beer.” He said, and then looking kind of wistful, “But who doesn’t? I think I’d shoot someone with a slingshot full of nails if they didn’t like beer.”
That the last time he used my name, disappointing to me because it had taken so long to come up with a fake one. Instead, the Weatherman called me “Tern”, because he swore by the power of monosyllable names, like the one he had picked out for himself when he joined the station.

The Weatherman was not an actual meteorologist, that was Judy’s job at the station. She handled all the real weather and he was smart enough not to screw with the mouth that fed him the weather.
“Good morning, Judy. Do you want Tern to get you a bagel? Maybe a neck rub or a five-dollar bill?”

Most people wanted to know if the Weatherman was a meteorologist.
“I was one credit short,” he’d tell interested parties on the street. If people recognized him he’d treat them like a free sandwich that had just been teleported into his hands.
“Jesus, look at you!” He’d say and go in for a hug. It was too much, too embarrassing. But for the Weatherman it was an effective way to deflect the hard questions. The Weatherman didn’t ever break the happy character. I only assumed his condo was flooded with tears.

“How come you never talk about the greenhouse effect?” Asked a large man wearing a reddish plaid wool jacket and a hat with earflaps.
“How come I never talk about the greenhouse effect? Listen to this guy!” And then the Weatherman hugged the man a second time.
“You didn’t answer my question.” The man stammered over the Weatherman’s close shoulder, who turned his head to the side and kissed the man on the cheek.
“I love you.” He said, looking into the man’s shocked eyes that seemed to be having trouble focusing on the surprisingly loving Weatherman.

“You know who loves the Earth?” He asked a couple blocks later, without looking in my direction. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Me.”

“What about the greenhouse effect?” I asked. The Weatherman stopped abruptly, made a fist, and kissed it. He looked at me seriously.

“Are you accusing me of not caring about the Earth? Is that what you are doing? I just told you I loved it.” During newscasts, the Weatherman had a disquieting habit of putting his finger to his head and making a “POW!” noise. That is what he did to me as we walked down the street. When he did it on the news he made a happy “POW!” sound, when he did it to my head it sounded more like a real gun.

“All I’m saying,” I continued, as this seemed to be the moment I had been waiting for, “is that since the polar ice caps are melting, it might be a good idea to take the smiles off the suns…”
“You know, Tern, I wish we were canoeing right now…” I imagined us at that moment, canoeing under the 520 bridge. A duck family went by quacking contentedly. “…so I could kill you with a paddle.” He let out what I interpreted to be a long cleansing breath. “Come on,” he said, pointing to the station.

I followed him back to the station, if only because I had left my hat there.

“Do you know why I do the weather?” The Weatherman asked as we stepped into the elevator.
“No..”
“This is not a participatory conversation,” he interjected, “The reason I do the weather is because I’m a people person. I like to see people happy and I want to make them happy. But you know what? The weather here is not happy. It’s sad, depressing, kick you in the crotch and take your credit cards weather. And there are hundreds of thousands of people out there roaming around like fucking living zombies and the rain is driving them nuts. They’re not going to see the sun in the sky, you understand that? You know where they are going to see some fucking sun? Right here.” He poked himself in the chest as we stepped off the elevator.

“Listen. Me, Chuck Born, and Lacey Mach,” he said naming some other local weather personalities, “are the only people keeping this city from mass suicides. Jesus, Tern, have you seen the weather outside?”
“I have…”
“Stop. Come into my cubicle, I have to show you some of my drawings.”
Opening his desk, he showed me a slightly off scale pencil drawing of a child carrying a teddy bear in one hand and a skull in the other. In the background were destroyed buildings, cars, and a mushroom cloud.
“This is what I am holding back. Chaos is at the door, Tern, and I’m the one sticking the chair under the knob.” Then he cocked his head to the side and stared at me. I debated my options.
“Thank you?” I ventured.
“You’re welcome.” Then he put out his fist. After a second he was already annoyed.
“Punch it.” The Weatherman insisted, nodding his head towards his fist. So I did.
“What the hell, Tern?” He asked in a high voice, shaking his hand wildly. I told him that he had told me to punch his hand.
“I know what I meant,” he said “and that’s not what you did.”

Just at that moment, Mona Peaceking stuck her head into the Weatherman’s cubicle.
“Hey…” and here she paused “…fellas. Come seen the new electronic weather thingy.” Mona Peaceking was the star anchor of the local news, a handsome woman on the screen and terrifying in the flesh. Her head was as huge as a cardboard box and her neck was the pencil that it balanced on. Her eyes looked to be about twice the size of regular eyes and it looked like she could unhinge her jaw to eat. Have you ever heard that thing about if they ever made a human-size Barbie Doll its utter freakiness would make little girls everywhere sob hysterically? Then you know what I am talking about.

We followed Mona out to the news set where Judy was standing in front of the green screen. She was motioning in loopy circles with what looked like a remote control with a ping-pong ball on the top. On a video monitor to my right I saw Judy standing in front of a map of the West Coast. Clouds followed her magical weather wand wherever she waved it and then by hitting a button, the wand could control the sun and rainstorms.
“You’ve got to try this,” she said, noticing the Weatherman staring into the monitor.

“I don’t like this,” he hissed at me. Watching him work on the green screen I knew that he wasn’t within a football field of comfortable with the new electronic weatherboard.

“Look at me, I’m fucking Luke Skywalker,” he yelled before accidentally throwing the weather remote control into the wall for a second time. The Weatherman’s shoulders slumped as he walked past me, “I can’t do this.”

I followed him into the station’s kitchen. Someone, maybe Judy or Mona, had thrown some of the old weather magnets onto the refrigerator. Happy suns were stuck over dour rainstorms, and a blowing wind fell off as we stood there. The Weatherman paused before opening the freezer. “Looks like we’ve got a cold front coming in from the north,” he said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. I nodded. Then he said it again, holding the freezer door open, looking for some sort of recognition.

“Shut the door, I’ve got popsicles in there.” Mona said.

“I’M SURPRISED YOU DON’T KEEP THEM UP YOUR PUSSY! IT’S PROBABLY COLDER UP THERE!” the Weatherman shouted.

That was the last day for both of us. I’d never seen someone break. It was like walking up to an intersection the second before a four-way crash.

They were actually quite gentle with the Weatherman as he rolled up all his drawings and put them into a cardboard box. For him, it was all sun magnets or nothing. I nodded to him as I left. He pointed his gun finger at me. Mona, as frightening as she was to stand close to, handed me a doughnut wrapped in a napkin, a sort of parting gift I assumed. In the end, it didn’t matter, I had gotten what I’d come for. The Weatherman knew about Global Warming.

Attempting your first stunt: An E-Z Guide to Incredible Achievement

For your first stunt, let’s start with an easy one, jumping off a building.

Step 1) Get on top of a building. Since this is your first stunt, start with an easy one in the 3- to 5-story range. You might experience some difficulty getting to the top of the building, what with the obstacles people throw in front of you, like doors and locked doors, but nobody ever said that stunts were easy.

Step 2) Stunts are easy. Go stand on the edge of the building. See the ground? Just the fact that the ground is there means that this stunt is possible. All you have to do is take a deep breath and step off the building.

Step 3) Before stepping off the building, let’s review your clothes for the stunt. Are they loose-fitting? Mechanic coveralls and yoga clothes are excellent. But, what should you wear on your head? Here’s a quick list:

Bad headwear: Stocking cap, bike helmet, child-size firefighter hat

Good headwear: Stocking cap with pom-pom, motorcycle helmet, child-size firefighter hat with “#1” written on it, any inflatable hat.

Okey-dokey, you are ready to fly!

Step 4) Flying is really the wrong word for what you are about to do. What you are seconds away from doing is a controlled fall. Where does the “control” come in? Personal choice. Yes, really. A side note, by this time the police may have arrived, make sure that you do not look them in the eyes. All you would see is jealousy, which is not a good way to begin a stunt. Now just close you eyes and let go.

Step 5) It is essential that you keep your eyes open during descent. You need to zero in on your landing spot, unless you are planning to jump off the building backwards, in which case feel free to look up at the sky or close your eyes.

Step 6) Just before your landing, tuck your chin in.

Step 7) If you have performed the stunt correctly, there will be no pain, just adrenalin surging through your veins. You can actually pick up a car. For reals! If you have performed the stunt correctly and are still in pain, seek medical attention immediately.

Step 8) Do not bow to passersby. Bowing is for bigger stunts, like ones that involve broken glass and sharks. Maybe, if you have really accomplished the stunt well, do that thing with your finger when you pretend it is a freshly shot gun and you are blowing the smoke away.

Step 9) Go look in the mirror and say hello to the beautiful/handsome stuntperson. (That’s you.)