Don't Sit Under the Hippo Tree With Anyone Else But Me

I would love to publish this, but it's a kid's story, and I'm not sure anyone in their right mind would print it, at least before I'm a highly sought after author.

It was a beautiful spring day. The birds were blooming, the flowers were singing.

It was a great day to be in love.

Dave and Ginger went for a stroll in the fields and woods near the palace. They ended up, as always, in the great orchard.

Somehow, they always ended up under the hippo tree. Today was no different.

As Dave gazed down at Ginger, she looked up in return. Her eyes widened with joy. "Look!" she exclaimed, "The hippos are ripe!"

Indeed they were. They gazed fondly up at the hippos squirming amidst the leaves. Soon they would be falling, to prance off gaily in search of the nearby river.

Dave led Ginger to the base of the tree. He spread out his cloak and they sat down under an especially ripe hippo, the biggest they had ever seen. Tenderly he kissed her brow, then pulled out a small box. "For you."

Her face lit up with a smile; it put the sun to shame. As she opened it, a diamond glistened from a golden ring. "Will you marry me, Ginger?"

Ginger gasped. She looked deep into Dave's eyes and opened her mouth to reply.

The full, ripe hippo fell with a loud plop onto the lovers and their cloak.

ILLUSTRATOR'S NOTES
Ginger has the elegance and looks of Ginger from Gilligan's Island but her personality and demeanor are more like Mary Ann (but slightly less perky).
Dave is a tall, lean but muscular, dark haired cowboy who went to a university and started wearing polos.

 

Copyright 2013 Triple R Publishing, Round Rock, TX.

---

I went back to this for some reason and started thinking about who I would want to cast in the movie version. (Yes, I realize it would be a very short movie-- even shorter than Hardware Wars, but at least it would be longer than Bambi vs Godzilla.)

Dave: Spencer Davis
Ginger: Joanie Anderson
Hippos: my nieces and nephews, with me in a cameo
Falling hippo: a piñata

If we were forced to use big names, I would be tempted to go with Brad and Angela, looking for the intensity they brought to Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I would use piñatas for the hippos, and Tim Conway as the falling hippo. My cameo would require my death as I would be the diamond in the ring.

Who would you cast? Would you have a cameo?

Life of Pie

(Inspired by Leigh Ballinger's constantly taunting me with pictures of pies.)

Pie's earliest memories were of extreme heat. Gradually he became aware of a red-orange glow. He grew and his skin toughened. Suddenly, the light changed. Cooler air washed over him. He shivered. Something fuzzy grabbed him and he flew through the air to land softly on a veritable ocean of wires. The great vessel in which he had lived was gone. He felt shipwrecked.

Pie was roused from sleep by noises. He was saved! A boy crept up from Pie's left. A tiger crept from his right. Surely one of these would help him, perhaps both!

The boy made a sound Pie didn't recognize, a snarl. The tiger replied with a louder version. The boy whipped out something bright and sharp and dangerous, a knife! The tiger unsheathed several dark and dangerous claws. Each moved closer, still snarling. Pie was confused; how would this help him get back into a nice, warm vessel to go home?

The boy, closer than the tiger, leaped suddenly, the knife descending. Sharp pain split Pie from one side to the other. By the time the tiger got to Pie, the boy had pulled half of him out of his metal exoskeleton. The tiger took the rest.

Rapidly finishing, the boy and the tiger licked their lips, grinned at one another, and fled the ship's kitchen before the baker returned.

THE END.

The Case of the Missing Balloon

On Valentine's Day each year for some time now, Sharon has snuck a gift into my office, or at my current job left it at the security desk. Last year was no different; she brought a giant, helium-filled frog that barely sat on the ground and hopped when I towed him, attached to a dozen, large, bright red, heart shaped balloons.

As usual, I put him up on my top shelf in my cube.

Meanwhile, our upper management, realizing that some people had been working long hours and forgotten to get their Significant Other anything for the holiday, brought in bunches of flowers, candy and cards for the miscreants to take home. Our CEO announced this in an email beginning, "In many ways I think it is the company's best interests to help our employees achieve a reasonably high level of domestic tranquility." The man has wisdom beyond his years.

Not having forgotten the holiday, I didn't need anything, which was a good thing, as the scene downstairs afterward was a wasteland; the marcomm group handling distribution looked stunned and a bit frightened.

Sitting at my desk the next morning, happily working away, our travel person (let's call her Carol) walked by. She smiled and said, "I took one of your balloons last night."

I laughed. "No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did!"

"Nonsense, there are still twelve..." I counted. Eleven. I counted again. "Oh, so you did. Why?"

"I wanted a little extra something for my husband. But you don't know how many balloons there are!"

"Of course I do. My wife sent me a dozen."

"She did not! You got those downstairs!"

"No, they didn't have balloons."

Consternation. "Are you serious?"

Steve popped his head over the cube wall. "They didn't have balloons. Those are from his wife."

"Oh, no! I thought you just grabbed a bunch of extras from downstairs!"

I teased her a bit, then realized she was really upset. I assured her it was no big deal. I thought it was funny. So, of course, did Sharon when I told her.

The next morning when I got to work, there were two really nice, red roses in a wine bottle. Carol had felt so bad she wanted to try to make it up to me! "I'd have brought it back, but I had written on it with a Sharpie[tm]." (She didn't say, "[tm]".)

She must have apologized a dozen times that day.

The frog is now flat, like roadkill. I released the rest of the balloons into the wild (either outside to disappear into the sky, or inside with their ribbons trimmed so they floated around about chest high). The roses withered and wandered off into a trash can.

The wine bottle sits on my desk. I still grin when I look at it.

Uncool

From the middle of sixth grade on, I was usually the uncool geek. Sometimes extremely so. If uncool geekiness had been an extreme sport, there are a lot of days I'd almost have won a gold medal. Why only almost? Because winning would have been at least a little bit cool.

I struggled to be cool-- at least when I wasn't lost in geeky things-- science, chess, comic books, reading, writing, and so on. I finally achieved coolness as a hippie during my college years. Then my world came crashing down. In the midst of despair at having totally made a wreck of things, I came face to face (literally) with God. He hadn't given up. He loved me as much as ever. I fell into Love's embrace.

I was promptly pronounced uncool by some of my friends. It felt surprisingly good. Over time, as I got comfy with who I am, and decided to not sweat it, and just love people, I found myself being treated as cool. Only I no longer cared. I didn't even know what to do with it. So I ignored it.

Just being able to not care if I'm cool is very cool.

You're cool? That's cool. Uncool? That's cool, too. Be you, and enjoy it. Love on folk. The ones who aren't all caught up in themselves and worried about being cool will come around.

Be cool. Whether you think you are or not. Be cool with being you. There's nobody more awesome than you.