Auntie's Fairly Flailing Tales #3: Feathers and Fur
Here's the third one. Don't say I didn't warn you! It may come as a relief to you that it's considerably shorter than its predecessors. Couldn't find the link to the source in the LitNet Forums; try this alternative:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15412
Feathers and Fur
We may have come from two different worlds, but it didn’t matter: we were in love.
Man, did we ever make a cute couple! I’ve been called “elegant,”--if you don’t mind my saying so -- and my Sweetie, well, what a beautiful puss! We had plenty in common, too: the two of us preferred the nighttime over the daytime, and shared a passion for really, really fresh food, which we liked to hunt for ourselves.
We got along great together, at first. Looking back on it now I confess we tended to avoid sensitive topics, for instance, where the strings on my musical instrument came from. (I play a mean guitar, by the way.) We hardly ever argued; in fact, we often spent hours complimenting each other --though now I’ve got to admit that to an outsider we must’ve sounded nauseating.
That isn’t to say we didn’t have faults. I have this neat little trick I do with turning my head around in almost a 360-degree angle. It made my honey nervous, but she was too sweet to mention it. She was a little on the dense side, though. One time when we were sailing down the Whoou-satonic River, she remarked, “Hey! It's really neat how our boat is pea-green. When somebody gets sea-sick and starts vomiting, nobody will be able to tell the difference." But as I say, we were so crazy about each other that we just knew that we had to be together forever.
Both sets of parents, whoo-oo were definitely Old School, were really Lear-y about our relationship, and on the basis of principle, objected to mixed marriages. Trying to convince my folks that we wouldn’t be the first to cross the species line, I cited the example of the Fly whoo-oo married the Bumblebee. “Fiddle-de-dee!” my mom replied. “Birds of a feather are supposed to flock together. You couldn’t find some nice chick from your own parliament?”
There was no getting through to them. So we decided to pool our cash, grab a sweet snack-to-go, and run away together.
Because my travel agent had offered a great deal that couldn’t be passed up, we did the honeymoon first. The cruise to Bong-tree Land was such a blast, we ended up staying slightly over a year. Neither one of us is big on ceremony, but we both agreed that we had put it off long enough. It was high time to tie the knot.
In an attempt to compensate for the delay, I rushed out and bought a second-hand ring from a shady source. “I don’t trust that guy,” said my soon-to-be bride. “He looks like a pig.” We had similar doubts about the official conducting the ceremony- he was a real turkey.
We wanted everything about the reception to be spontaneous, in keeping with our free-spirited personalities, so it was sort of a haphazard affair. Even so, I think we got ripped off on the buffet. I registered my complaint to the caterer. “Whoo are you to treat me like a dumb cluck? Where are all the tuna sushi and the field mice we ordered?”
He glared at me. “What’re you, some kind of wise guy? Look at all this delicious mince! And quince! You know how hard it is to find foods that rhyme?”
The singing and dancing more than made up for the lousy meal. Our guests really whoo-ped it up. And contrary to what is customary for an elopement, we actually received some wedding gifts. It took a while for my wife to get around to writing the thank you notes, mainly because neither one of us could remember whoo gave us the runcible spoon.
When it was time to set up housekeeping, there came the question concerning where to roost: a love nest in the tall pine tree or a litter box in some single woman’s apartment? As it turned out, it was moot because my wife spent most of her time napping under a Mazda parked in a nearby driveway.
A few months later, when the newlywed novelty started wearing off, the unsettling issue about children arose. Whoo would our future progeny be: owlets or kittens? Or what would they look like: furry birds of prey or feathered felines? Coming up with a solution similar to that of the compromise made for the movie in which Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy were depicted as parents, my wife decreed that all of our male babies would resemble me and all of our little female ones would look like her.
As time went by, our funds started getting low, so I picked up a little money with modeling gigs. You’ve seen the famous figure on the potato chip bag? You’re looking at him. I also served as a stand-in for Woodsy, the spokesbird in the Public Service Announcements against pollution.
When I asked What’s-her-name to pitch in, she reluctantly accepted a few commercial gigs. As I said before, she’s cat-egorically slow on the pick-up, so the director had to call for take after re-take, each time requiring that she gorge herself on can after can of cat food. I wasted no time telling her that if she kept it up, she’d soon be fatter than a Walmart shopper.
I don’t know why she’d let herself go, especially since she used to be so attractive. For instance, the sight of her stretched out in front of the fire and licking herself all over used to be such a turn-on. But after a while, it just disgusted me.
Something happened to the cuddly cutie I married, the pussycat who would slink across the room and affectionately rub her back against my wing. Somehow she’d become distant and aloof, as if she wanted nothing to do with me.
Finally, just when I was ready to call it quits, she up and left me. I heard that she flew the coop with a bald eagle, who was recently divorced and had a comb-over. Whoo knew my ex goes for the strong, silent, patriotic type?
Like I give a hoot.
The End
