The Toadmaster's Written Word

The Story of the Week!

This weeks feature presentation:

Time To Face The Facts

The following story is true, slightly embellished with a few details added for interest, and dramatized for effect.

It was a fair day, the sun was shining and the birds were singing, and everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves. Stinky the squirrel was having a good old time, playing and jumping about when he decided to show off to his friends. “Hey, look at me!” he shouted. He danced around dangerously on a transformer, humming beneath him with the living force of 20,000 volts of alternating current. “Hey,” he yelled, “Watch me tug and chew on these silly wires!” The other squirrels watched helplessly in sheer terror as the scene unfolded before them. “No, Stinky! Don’t do it!” they cried! But foolishly he continued in total disregard for his health. “I am invincible!” he laughed in response. “Hoo hoo, hee hee!” He yanked on a particularly dangerous looking wire, laughing and dancing a little jig all the while. “What are ya pansies scared of, huh? See, nothing’s happening,” he giggled. The other squirrels couldn’t bear to watch, covering their eyes and scampering away to protect their cute little eyes from the horrible sight that was sure to follow. “Ha, ha, ha! You bunch of wusses!” Stinky continued, “These harmless wires couldn’t hurt a fly! I’ve chewed on them all the time and they’ve never hurt me once! I’ll bet this here is just a phone line!” He yanked a nice, fat wire. “Hmm, seems stuck,” he laughed, “I’ll set you free, my fun little friend.” He opened his jaws wide. He paused a moment, for effect, to raise the blood pressure of his watching audience. Oh, this’ll be good! he thought. His mouth seemed to get wider and wider as he dramatically swung his head back to bring it forcefully back on the smooth, black casing of the wire. Sudden thoughts of fear flashed through Stinky the squirrel’s minute mind. What if it isn’t a phone line? What if it has 80,000,000 volts flowing through it? What if I get fried? But Stinky’s pride held out. He must bite the wire, or he’ll never know what lies behind the mysterious black casing of the wire. Because, he thought, knowledge is power, and knowing is half the battle. He’d heard that somewhere. His four razor-sharp incisors slid though the thick, black casing of the copper wire like it was butter. Most new transformers had protectors to prevent this kind of thing from happening, but this one was old. Stinky knew this, but protection from what? It was the man, he thought. Greedily hoarding all the power for himself. Oh, he’d show him. He would show them all. A mighty bite befell the wire, which, in turn, released it’s powerful treasure trove of tremendous trauma. Volts and volts of electrical current streamed through his body, causing his entire body to light up like the Fourth of July. “NO!” the onlookers cried! They clenched their fists and their eyes seemed to pop from their sockets. Stinky’s forced entry triggered a response in the transformer, a safety device to alert those nearby of it’s malfunction. A capsule packed with gunpowder exploded beneath the hapless squirrel, jolting it free from the magnetic force of the electricity, but sent his body, still twitching from the electrical shock, flying though the atmosphere. Oh, what distance he flew that day, Stinky’s last real moment of fame as his body sailed though the air a good twenty yards. Tears welled up in the eyes of his fellow squirrels, distraught by the sight of Stinky’s hot, smoking body. His now limp body was blackened in strategic places, and the whiskers on his face were all crinkled up. The squirrels sadly left the scene, and returned to their daily duties of gathering nuts for the approaching winter. A short while later a man came to repair the transformer, and looking down at the motionless form laying on the ground said, “This squirrel looks mighty tasty.” He then stuck the steaming squirrel in his back pocket, imagining the warm, excited grins on his childrens faces at the prospect of fresh squirrel for dinner. It would be a nice change from rats and grasshoppers. The memories of Stinky faded, and the squirrels lives plodded on in the normal course of things. It would be nice to say that Stinky’s misadventure would not be forgotten, but let’s face it: squirrels are stupid.