Good morning, Sir! How are you doing on such a splendid morning? Marvelous, truly marvelous! I say, could you help me down from this ventilation duct? I seem to have gotten myself stuck.
Why, thank you, sir! You truly are a fine cheese among men! If I had a daughter, I would betroth her to you this very moment. Currently, all I have is this duck. Would you like this duck? I had it specially made in London from the genes of an egret and a panther. She doesn’t swim very well, but you should see her take down an antelope! You couldn’t find a better panthret. No? Marvelous! She seems to be attached to me, upon closer inspection.
What’s that, sir? Why am I distinctly sans-pantaloons, you ask? Ah, well that is a ripping good yarn. You see, I was out on my nightly promenade, when a gust of wind threw up, and stole from me my favourite handkerchief! It was my mother’s, you see. She made it during the war, from the tatters of my father’s silk drawers and thread delicately peeled from the silver spoon I received upon my birth. We had to make everything last, back then. Even the maid.
So you see why I’d chase after this kerchief, and chase I did. I chased it right up a tree, into a borough of mischievous squirrels. They poked at me and bonked me a few times with some hazelnuts, the dear little bastards, but I didn’t think they were at all dangerous until I realized that they were pulling at my trousers! They’d barely even managed to pull the left cuff from my foot when they tossed me out of the tree. In hindsight, perhaps a pair of acorn-patterned pants was not the best dress for the occasion, but I am a slave to fashion.
Then, suddenly, a young squirrel fell from the tree into my lap. He was convulsing, and his narrow eyes were wide with fear. He reminded me of myself, when I was his age. I instantly realized his plight. He was allergic to gluten. My pants were made of gluten! He’d eaten himself into cardiac arrest!
Without a thought given to my new-found nudity, I raced for the nearest animal clinic. It wasn’t hard to find; I simply bit a postman and they took me right there. The clinic appeared to be closed, however; there was an enormous protest outside their doors, looking much like what would have happened if Ann Coulter and Teri Shiavo had given birth to a child, and then that child had exploded into a giant swarm of loud, angry bees. It turned out to be an anti-abortion protest.
“Baby killer!” one of the protesters screamed. “All dogs go to heaven; except the ones you murder!” chanted another.
The abortive veterinarian in question drew open his shutters to howl a response. “These dogs are all urban professionals! They don’t have time to raise children!” he reasoned, ear-splittingly. “You think they can just give them away?” The crowd exploded into a fury, hitting the ceiling as much as was physically possible in an outdoor location. They reached into their protest kits and pulled out tiny demonstration dog fetuses, confronting the animal doctor with the reality of his murderous ways by hurling them in elegant, furry arcs toward his practice. In the melee, I realized that my furry friend was lost! Someone had mistaken him for a fetus and lobbed him at a young girl with a Shih Tzu. My little Percival – I’d named him Percival, you see – was gone.
I wandered dejectedly out of the crowd, the wind whistling through my leg hair like Pan through a flute. A young woman – dressed head-to-toe in rainbows and clacking necklaces and toe rings – stopped me, waving her arms around and gesturing with her aura that she knew I was in great despair.
“You gotta come with us, brother. Share our vision; our trust and our souls. And oh yeah – got any money for weed, man?”
“I do apologize, my dear,” I apologized, “but I seem to have left my wallet in my pants. And as you can see, the squirrels have my pants.”
“Right on,” she smiled. “You’ve embraced nature. Peace.” She took me to her commune and explained to me the ways of her people.
“Like, we started out as anti-war activists, right?” she recounted, “But then we got lost this one time and we ended up at this anti-abortion rally, and we’ve been protesting for them ever since.”
A berainbowed man continued, “We do disagree with The Man, of course, but we feel our true calling is in abortion. Anti-abortion.”
“We’re not like those wackos with the bee costumes on, though. We believe in a more constructive message. A message of warmth. A message of love without penetration.” She made a lewd gesture with the guitar she was using as a pipe.
My mind boggled. Hippies that abstained from carnal vigor? Did there actually exist such beings? And then I understood.
“You have no idea how incredible sex is on PCP… with your underwear on,” she said.
Long story short, officer, that is how I got stuck inside a ventilation duct, chained to a duck, with no pants on and a silhouette of Pierre Trudeau spray painted on my butt.
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