Musings of a Lemming

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Never Trust a Bunny!

 

In my part of the US of A, there are certain signs that spring is coming. Such as the weather turning colder than it was two months earlier with more snow. My furnace dying because I could only afford the one-year warranty. Or, worst of all, signs that that rabbit who brings chocolate and brightly colored eggs is on their way as I start finding the rejects of those colored eggs hidden outside my house in the snow.

 

The story dates back to my childhood. Growing up, I had a rabbit bully named Esther. Yeah, a girl used to beat me up! You got something to say about it? Anyway, her torments continued all but unabated until middle school when I finally got fed up and confronted her. That's when I learned she'd actually liked me all that time but didn't want to risk me rejecting her. In my teenage mind I couldn't understand what I was hearing. Honestly I'm not quite sure I understand it even now. She beat me up to stop me from rejecting her? Or she beat me up because she thought I'd already rejected her? This is starting to give me a headache.

 

After that the bullying stopped. Sort of. Instead of giving me swirlies or stealing my lunch or leaving me black and bluer, she began to dominate my time and scare off the other girls I was friends with by hovering around me. As a concession I agreed to go on one date. Just one. What I didn't know was she would use that to justify telling others we were dating. Worse, it was an excuse for her to start leaving some creepy gifts for me in my locker when she figured out my combination. Not cards or little notes. Far worse things.

 

By this time we were both sixteen and had jobs. I was slinging hash at a rundown Taco Time, she was an intern for EBI. That was how she got access to the things she began to leave me. The first time it was a little plastic egg with some chocolates inside. What I didn't realize was those chocolates were loaded with caffeine, Spanish fly, and other things reputed to be aphrodisiacs. I don't know if they worked or not; I was sixteen. Then it was Polaroids (this is pre-smartphones) of herself. Once it was a pair of edible underwear. Finally it was a handmade invitation to her place during a weekend when her parents were out of town with a warning that not showing up would have "consequences."

 

Showing up had "consequences" as well. For two days I was tied up as...well, you know what they say about rabbits. Dehydrated, violated, in places even perforated, I then spent the next week in the hospital recovering. During that time she found some other shy boy to focus her attentions on, but every once in a while I would still find a plastic egg in my locker. After graduation she became a senior employee of Easter Bunnies, Inc., while I went on to college. Four years passed and I managed to put her out of my mind as I finished earning my certifications and began a real job--one that would end when I discovered my soul being sucked from my body by fiendish, feckless little fu..."people" who thrived on killing dreams, stomping ambitions, and finally devouring the last vestiges of ego from the peons under their tyranny employees under their management.

 

That first year when I found the rejected Easter eggs, I thought it was just a joke by my college buddies. When I cracked them open I found several "novelties" as well as a note that read, "Remember me?" Each year since, no matter where I move, I find those eggs as Easter approaches. Every Easter, I lock down my home like I'm preparing for the zombie apocalypse. If I don't gather up the eggs on my own, I still find them collected into one basket on my dining room table by Easter morning. If I try to throw them out, they reappear with a note that reads, "Naughty, naughty."

 

They started appearing three days ago this year. Worse still, Melissa found them and discovered what was inside. Even though we're just friends with benefits right now, I expected her to bite my head off. Instead she decided to have some fun with them. She's dismissed my explanation about where they're coming from. She doesn't believe in the Esther Bunny.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

"Spring" Break - The Prologue

 

There's something about my little glen that seems to appeal to Millennials. Maybe it's the fact it's isolated and private. Or that, in the warmer months, there's a nice pond for swimming in. Or maybe it's just my luck. Whether that last one is good or bad I leave to the reader to decide.

 

Every year around the second week of March a bunch of sorority girls like to come here as a cheap alternative to Florida. Or because it's some place no one would think to look as they get up to whatever. Every year there's plenty of booze, crazy antics, and other things better left for the Adult Stuff area. I've never seen the full name of the sorority--Gamma Ceta something--but I recognize the...faces. One of the young ladies has come here ever year for six years, even two years after graduating. It seems the girls still in college see her as a sort of den mother because she looks out for them while they're here and has done so for three years now.

 

I watched her drive in with an extendable RV today, one that had to be rented because it costs almost as much as a small house to buy. Along with a generator, a propane space heater, and one of those giant tents often used in fairs to provide shade and three-and-a-half semisolid walls. My furry little mind is abuzz with questions about what she's doing with such things. I know in years past the ladies complained about the cold preventing them from walking around topless, bottomless, or nude, but they usually just return three months later to do that. Or they get ripped off some cheap booze and do it anyway. Come to think of it, that may explain what's going on. Last year one of them nearly developed frostbite because she tried to stay outside too long.

 

I'm trying not to judge because I did some really stupid things in college myself. And after college. Throughout my twenties. And early thirties. And just last week--okay, okay! So I still do stupid things all the time. It just doesn't (usually) involve alcohol anymore. Which leaves me without an easy excuse to explain why I do the dumb things I do.

 

Thinking back on past years, I realize I've never really understood why they come here. Then again I am a guy...well, a male. There are things I'm just too dense or just too insensitive to realize. Or maybe it's so simple I'm overlooking the blatantly obvious. It might help if I actually listened to and understood what they were saying.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

"Spring" Break

 

From my burrow I watch as half a dozen sorority members cavort, drink, gossip, drink, laze around, and drink some more. It's an annual ritual that I've come to quietly dread. Not so much because they leave a mess or disrupt the lives of us critters. Rather it's that I'm given an endless look into the infinite complexity of the female mind and forced to face the fact that my own mind is a two-piece puzzle in comparison. No man can hope to understand what goes on there, but I think I've made some progress of my own.

 

The young ladies that come here all seem to share more than just membership in the same sorority. It's a chance to get away. From peer pressure, from school pressure, from the incessant pressure that society places on women every moment of every day about everything. No one here cares about what they eat or don't eat, what they wear, what they do, or what their "attributes" are. You want a friend that won't judge you on anything so superficial as your appearance? Look to the animals. Want to scream and yell and not have some guy try to "fix things?" We critters just listen.

 

That said, there are still some things I don't fully understand. It's thirty-three degrees (one degree Celsius) and yet some of them still go about without tops and/or bottoms. I'm covered in fur but even I put on a tiny little scarf when things get too cold. Often that accompanies drinking until they can't stand up or vomit. And is often followed by complaints about society's standards of feminine beauty, the way they're treated by their significant others, and sexual talk that would make guys blush. Sometimes it's titillating, other times it's just disturbing. Imagine hearing graphic details of how one gal's boyfriend likes to watch her "sit" on an anal dildo while he jacks himself off dressed up like Marilyn Monroe with a wig and everything. Or how another's asks that she crush his testicles under five-inch stiletto heels. Perversely, that I like to hear because it confirms my suspicions that the jocks and other popular guys I went to school with are even more screwed up than I was. It's the really kinky stuff that I'm trying not to picture right now, things that make me wonder if the guys in their lives need professional help. I really don't think doing that sort of thing with a cheese grater and a belt sander is healthy.

 

There's still four more days of this left before they leave for four months. If I have to listen to more screwed up things their jock boyfriends like to do in private, or watch them defy sanity by going out in near-freezing weather without clothes on after half a bottle of red wine each, my furry little head may just explode.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

When Lemmings Have Insomnia

 

Is there any worse feeling than when you're tired...but can't fall asleep? The exhaustion is bad, but it's the strange things my mind does. The odd paths is takes, the strange things it focuses on, and the insane ideas that start to make sense. It's the last that scares me.

 

As I write this my mind veers towards the idea of a castle made up of caramel squares. The building materials are so readily available. And it would have the most wonderful smell. But somewhere in my mind I know it's nuts. Every surface would be sticky and a solid rain would melt everything. Worse still would be the bugs. Flies and I are sworn enemies, from tiny no-see-ums to massive deer and horseflies. Every spring and summer I arm myself with a miniature Bug-A-Salt, bug bombs, and fly strips, and declare a one-lemming war on all things that buzz and eat excrement. With flies you only count every thousand as one kill; so far my count is up to forty confirmed. The chance to break fifty would justify creating a caramel square castle.

 

Even scarier is when the actions of the Putz of the United States, Donald Chump, start making sense. I find myself agreeing that we need to increase our nuclear stockpile, tax the middle- and lower-classes, and antagonize every other country in the world. Why? That's when it starts hurting to think. So I don't think. Then I realize I'm turning into a sheeple and scream for hours in sheer horror.

 

Scariest of all is the thought that I really should try to express my feelings more. To get in touch with what's in my soul. Then I look into the roiling darkness in there and realize it would be safer if I didn't. There are things in there that should never see the light of day. Like my plan to take career politicians and corporate executives and bury them in the ground with their heads above the soil to act as the ultimate fertilizer. To take poachers and grind them up for feed for the very animals they murder. Or finally buy stock in companies like EA because they've tapped into the ultimate power of the universe: stupidity.

 

It's around that point that I finally break out a hammer and hit myself in the head until I pass out. I think I'll go do that right now.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Spring is in the Air--ACHOO!

 

Spring "officially" began five days ago. Around here, that usually means squat as the weather is still frigid, we still get frost, and eventually a late snow after warmer weather tricks the plants into budding before things start getting H-O-T! But this year it seems as if things are moving on ahead early. The first sign of spring? The pond in the glen thaws, unlocking a store of something held since late November. Not fish, but mold. I don't even have to smell it to know; my allergies start acting up to the point that I can't breathe through my nose, my eyes itch constantly, and they look like I've been cutting onions. I also swell up in places that require me to shave my fur off to apply ointment.

 

The best solution to the mold? Sunlight. But there is no sunlight! The weather is always gray and cloudy and I'm not even in Seattle. So Mama Nature forces us animals to adapt. By taking a generator we "borrowed" from some hunters years ago. I'm not even sure who they were; just that one of them "accidentally" shot the other in the face and was some sort of high-up in the government at the time. Anyway, we wheel out that thing and hook up half a dozen sun lamps aimed at the pond. It helps reduce things but it also requires a lot of gas for the jenny. Which is more expensive than my grocery, utility, cell phone, and Internet bills combined. We lemmings don't use that many resources on our own.

 

Another sign of spring is that various animals start migrating back or waking up from hibernation. Millie, my ex-squirrel-friend, arrived back here Saturday. I'd told her all about Melissa and our FWB relationship on Skype and she said she was okay with it. That, of course, was a lie and I knew it from the beginning. Despite our own relationship having been ended on no uncertain terms, she's still possessive of me when it comes to other females. Now I've got two women who are constantly after my nuts.

 

A character I didn't mention before--because he was asleep until now--is Theodore Edwards Bear. The name is too stupid to make up, his name really is Ted E. Bear. The massive grizzly is still shaking off post-hibernation lethargy because he keeps confusing quotations from Sir James Joyce with those of Voltaire. Ted is more of the intellectual sort. He's definitely smarter than the average bear. Most days when we're not working we get together to discuss the works of great authors, philosophy, and try to solve the great unsolved mysteries of science. Mysteries like the true origins of the first life forms on Earth, dark matter, and why things simply vanish between the couch cushions. For a while we tried hard to understand women, but eventually realized we simply weren't equipped to do so. The female brain is the most complex system in existence, more than even quadratic equations. As men our brains are the equivalent of first grade addition. If you've ever tried to run software on a computer that simply wasn't powerful enough, you will know what happened to us when we tried. Our brains stalled and crashed, leaving with blank, empty stares with more vacuum than space.

 

Getting the pond clear of mold when he comes out of hibernation is something of a priority. Have you ever smelled a bear after five months in some den?!

 

Finally Lipps emailed me and said he was on his way back. I kind of feel sorry for the guy; down in Brazil he has that nice villa and a Brazilian supermodel girlfriend. Up here he has...a pond. He also can't resist the urge to mate simply to carry on the species, something that would be hard without a female duck. He also has to run a gauntlet thanks to that horrible practice known as "duck season." He usually stops off somewhere and gets his own hunting gear out for what he calls, "human season." Every year when he gets back he puts up a trophy of a three-chinned ex-hunter he bagged years ago. Each year he tries to add another, but none of the critters are really worth the effort of stuffing.

 

For now I'm off to shave yet more places and apply more ointment while I hold my head over an electric kettle to clear my sinuses. I hate spring.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Caffeine Crash

 

I can't think of anyone who hasn't needed a quick hit of something to make it through the day. Especially when you're doing a job so routine and dull that it MAKES YOU WANT TO PUT YOUR EYES OUT!

 

::huffs and puffs:: Sorry, I'm projecting.

 

My ex-boss, now technically my contact as a contracted systems tech, tasked me with figuring out who was eating up bandwidth on the company network. Never mind that there are programs for that. Still, I need to keep him happy and the man hasn't yet figured out that the light does go out when you shut the fridge door. So of course he would be in charge of a bunch of people whose jobs involve computers. Thankfully I can telecommute from my burrow so he can't see the hand gestures I'm making.

 

As I trace the data trail backwards I begin to nod off. It isn't until my face smashes my keyboard that I decide to drink something. Since I don't like coffee, I stock up on wild cherry Pepsi. But even a single can is a lot for a lemming. As I sip on a straw as long as my whole body my free hand works a buckyball. When I look over at it I realize I've squeezed it so hard its turned into diamond. Then I start getting crazy thoughts. Like maybe I should clean up the place. Sort the pantry. Take out that thing that used to be meatloaf before it evolved consciousness in my fridge. Before I know it I'm doing those very things. The walls have been scrubbed, the carpets vacuumed, tile floors mopped. Somehow in that time I also arranged everything in my pantry by type and ease of preparation and also cleaned out all the rotten food in my refrigerator. My Dog! I have space in there now!

 

Yet I've still got too much energy. My DVD library is alphabetized, my gaming magazines put into recycling bins, my toilet scrubbed! I'm just a furry blue bur according to my friends, who watch me as I begin raking up all the dead leaves that have accumulated over the winter outside my burrow. I even...cook! Not just a pot of beans or some TV dinner. I mean a five-cheese lasagna, a polka dot cake with frosting, and enough bacon to give a bear a coronary. Poor Ted.

 

Inevitably the crash comes. I sit back down at my computer and suddenly my limbs won't move. My will to live is gone. And not because I saw my ex-boss's face. Realizing the futility of my efforts since I will still die one day, I begin to weep. That's when my ex-boss decides to check in. Seeing a soul completely drained of energy, he tells me to keep up the good work.

 

Now I remember why I usually stock caffeine free Pepsi. 

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Lemming on Vacation

 

I'm going to take a break from the Musings for a while. Partly to recharge my creative batteries, partly because I need surgery for an abdominal hernia and my vet tells me I won't be able to move a lot for six weeks afterwards. Since I don't have a laptop yet, that means no new stories as I heal unless I break down and buy a laptop before the surgery. One small enough for a lemming. It gives new meaning to the term "microtonics."

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Lemming with a Laptop

 

The lemming broke down and bought a laptop. Not one of those cheap, prefab piles sold at electronics stores and departments that overheats after five minutes, shatters if it so much as touches a hard surface, has a battery that can't hold a charge, and comes loaded with spyware and more security holes than just Win 10, either. It's bare bones, has nothing besides Win 10 on it, and is nothing even remotely resembling a gaming rig (an oxymoron for laptops). No internal DVD drive, just one USB-C slot with a USB hub that has one USB-C slot, one USB slot, and an HDMI slot that will never see use, and no mouse. And it cost $2K plus change.

 

Why would anyone buy something like that? Security, privacy, a quality backup service, components that don't have planned obsolescence built-in, a true lifetime warranty from folks that actually know what they're doing as opposed to groups like Geek Squad who just make things worse...you know, those things that most don't think about until their computer goes belly up or their data gets stolen. The lemming has seen that happen too often. At his old job, the lemming was often asked by sheeple to fix their computer despite it not being his job and in most cases being a violation of company rules that could get him fired if he did do it because it involved non-company hardware.

 

(No, I don't know why I'm talking in the third-person.)

 

So what does a lemming do with a laptop that is functionally no more powerful than a PS4 or XBOX One? He uses it to sort through his porn-burned-to-CD/DVD-over-fifteen-years-before-losing-interest-in-real-person-porn collection, plays several dozen bishoujo games he's never gotten around to installing on his desktop, and binge watches shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime as well as YouTubers like Camel from Camelworks when he should be looking for a surgeon to repair his hernia.

 

Were it not for humans, the lemming would the laziest critter on Earth.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

First-Degree Insecticide

 

I hate bugs. I hate them in my burrow, in my video games, and especially in my face. What I especially hate are mosquitoes. See, lemmings are adapted to colder climates. We do well in polar and sub-polar regions. But in temperate climes I rapidly overheat when the weather warms up. So I'm forced to shave my entire body. I look like a giant pink prune until September when I start growing in my winter coat. It also makes me vulnerable to skeeters. And we have two, equally nasty varieties around here. The first is B-I-G! Easily four inches long from proboscis to tail. Enough to leave me woozy when they bite. But the other is small and easily missed; those are the ones that really get me because I may not notice them until I've got a bite in a very embarrassing place.

 

And it's not just the skeeters trying to grab a bite. We have deer flies, horseflies, ticks, all sorts of six-legged freaks. That isn't including the others that drive us all...buggy. Ants sneak in and steal Cecil and Dave's stash of Hot Pockets; how can two gaming geeks play Skyrim VR without Hot Pockets?! The blue and green bottle flies that swarm around moose because they think he's a sack of road apples. The tarantulas who creep us all out. It's enough to make us consider living with humans!

 

So we fight back. Cecil and Dave rigged up a redneck's bug zapper using fine steel mesh hooked up to a transformer with spotlights to draw the bugs in. After a while the place starts to smell like a chip wagon, though. Moose...bathes. And me? I break out the DEET-filled balloons, the citronella smoke grenades, and a Bug-A-Salt. I'm a bit more proactive in my efforts to kill the entomological terrors. Today I spent the day in a bug blind--a pile of garbage over a miniature tent--and waited. When a fly came close enough, BOOM! There's nothing so satisfying as hearing the high-pitched "AAAHHH!" as the creatures scream and die from a sodium overdose. Every fly killed is a few million less later on.

 

Then there are the bug strips. Not plastic coated with glue but a series of little boxes with some homemade bug killer. A poor lemming's Roach Hotel chain. And they don't simply trap and kill; the bugs gather it, take it back to their nests and hives, and share it with their sisters and queen. Soon all of them are dead! BWAHAHAHAHA!

 

Who needs video games when you can actually slaughter your enemies? 

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Pink Lemming-aid

 

Every year around this time I start to shed. Not in small amounts either. I woke up this morning and my profile covered the sheets. That's when I knew it was time to grab a Remington shaver and do what I must every mid-spring. When it was done I felt a lot better and had lost several ounces. But there's a problem. Underneath this blue fur I'm...pink! It may work for that panther, but I just look silly. Worse still, I have to wear pants. I'm an animal, not an uncivilized beast. Going without something to cover my bits is simply not an option.

 

There's another problem in that I'm left exposed to the bugs who want a bite. Today as I was chatting with Ted about the deeper meanings of Voltaire's works over a cup of earl grey, I got visited by a mosquito. Hell isn't other people; it's massive skeeters. I felt something crawling on my bare skin, slapped it, and came away with a smear of crimson on my rosy butt. Now I've got an itch in a place that I can't scratch in public. And it wasn't the smaller variety of mosquito that bit. I started feeling a bit woozy a minute later and my skin took on an ashen color. I should have put some OFF! on before I left the burrow.

 

As if to add insult to injury, Millie has cooked me meals to help me recover. I've eaten enough iron-rich foods that the fridge magnets are starting to follow me when I walk by. And I can forget about sitting down until the venom breaks down. Unless I sit in calamine lotion. Needless to say, I'm not having a very good day. My skin is pink, my outlook isn't very rosy, I feel rather blue, and whenever I think about what happened I start seeing red. And I'm short on green until the beginning of next month.

 

It's not easy being pink.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Nutter Naturists

 

The English language is an amazing thing. Such as the potential for critical typos. One of the rangers warned us about the coming of "naturalists" over the weekend. That's never good because they always make a fuss about how we critters have learned too many human behaviors. Try dealing with that on your days off. But even that would have been preferable to what we actually got.

 

A little after dawn a series of RVs pulled into the glen. That was the first sign we weren't dealing with naturalists, since so many are hyper-focused on "being green" and would rather hike in and forage for food. The other was when the people stepped outside and...began getting naked. Dear Dog! Wrinkles, crinkles, flab, flaps, and hair in places even I shave! My eyes are still dilated.

 

Ted came by to visit me, took one glance at them, and ran away whimpering. Millie and the other squirrels were falling out of the trees. Even Lipps, who's seen worse, was vomiting in the pond. His new ducklings went hungry that day. Why is it that nudists are always the last people you want to see nude?

 

But it got worse. It always does. They played...volleyball. Skin shouldn't flap in the wind. Nor should breasts wobble that much. Not on guys. And why would they put on gloves to trim dead branches off a blue spruce but not wear anything else? I also question their decision to play lawn darts and horseshoes with so much left open to injury. But when they used the two boulders that mark the path into my burrow as sunbathing spots, I went from pink to green.

 

Yet nothing compares to the wild dancing they did around the campfire. It was little mercy that it wasn't in broad daylight. There was flesh flying everywhere and yet they didn't get burned. That says they've done that before. And that scares me silly.

 

I'd write more but I'm still in shock and will need months of therapy to recover. When you make even animals sick with your bare body, that's a good sign you should never take your clothes off.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Lemming on a Rampage!

 

I can finally talk about this because the ensuing court case was thrown out and the plaintiff fined ten-thousand dollars as well as being confined to a psychiatric hospital pending a full evaluation. It seems that even rich, white, Christian males can't get away with trying to sue forest critters without being seen as bleeping loons.

 

It started two weeks ago when I got nailed by some driver without insurance while driving. My entire food budget suddenly had to go towards repairing my car, leaving me with nothing but instant ramen to eat until I got paid again. I know a lot of college kids practically live on the same thing, but I'm not a young lemming anymore. Plus a lack of protein in a high-carbohydrate diet renders the brain highly suggestible. It certainly left me open to the dark murmurs coming from my storage closet. The place where I stashed Terry, the Evil Rubber Chicken, after my cousins' last visit. That wicked latex poultry once more got into my head.

 

Some retired judge and his wife also decided to visit the glen this week in an RV worth six figures. As if that wasn't enough, he also setup a diesel generator that wouldn't pass any kind of emissions test right near my burrow's main air intake. Fortunately I'm prepared for just such an emergency and sealed off that shaft so what did get in could be vented out by an exhaust fan. Still, when I went to complain he just tried to stomp me! By Dog, what a savage! Trying to squish a not-so-furry creature under hiking boots that cost more than I spend on utilities each month.

 

When he and his wife left for a nature hike, my friends and I broke into his overly large toy and tried to steal their food. Only most of it wasn't real food! Fat-free hummus? Tofu? All -Bran? Seaweed? A plastic canister of chunky peanut butter but no jam? And they call us beasts?! In that instant something inside me just...snapped. I took the PB and used it to clog up the exhaust port of that damned generator. When they came back he tried to start it with a remote control. Only it kept stalling. Apparently he was of the mind, "If something's not working, you just need to keep pressing the button until it does."

 

Long part of the story short, the thing blew up and tore their RV apart like rice paper. I watched with maniacal glee with Terry in one hand, only to spot a cleaver amidst the wreckage. That's when Terry began whispering that these people shouldn't be allowed out of the woods alive. They tried to kill me twice--once from pollution, once from footwear--and turnabout was fair play. So I picked up the cleaver in my free hand and began chasing them. An eight inch, hairless lemming wielding a cleaver twice as large. My friends just stood back and laughed at the irony of the food chain being turned upside down.

 

My diet of nothing but carbs had left me with a lot of energy. I kept chasing them, screaming, "Tabodi!" (Translation: Get back here! Come on! Chop, chop, chop!) Eventually they fled on foot and I came down from what had to be a serious adrenaline surge because I couldn't even lift that stupid cleaver anymore. I'm still a little unsure of what happened next. Only that I was served a subpoena and that Terry is back in the storage closet again, this time with his beak duct taped shut and his body wrapped in chains.

 

To think I once more succumbed to "fowl" play.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Remembrances of Things Best Left Forgotten

 

Many, many times I find myself lying awake at night under the onslaught of intrusive thoughts. Things I'd all but forgotten coming back to haunt me. Things I'd like to forget but just can't. Or things my friends would like to forget but I refuse to let them do so because they got me into that mess in the first place!

 

Like the horrors that have become simply known as the Hummus Incident. Five years ago we had some modern yuppies come to camp in the glen, packing every possible food that hipsters would pretend to like. Including mashed chickpeas that had separated into a grainy mass and oil. Dave (Dovahchicken) came off of nearly ten hours of playing the fantasy MMO du jour and needed my help to get at it because apparently wings can't open coolers. Only it was the middle of the night, neither of us had a light, and we wound up prying open the top of a propane camping stove. The noise awoke one of those yuppies who reacted to "wild animals" in his camp rather violently. I guess the corporate stress reduction techniques don't work too well.

 

He began chasing us around with an axe but Dave insisted we grab that damned hummus. So while he distracted the maddened middle manager, it fell to me to grab the stupid garbanzo bean dip. Try and imagine an eight inch tall lemming opening a two-foot tall plastic cooler and you can envision my struggle. By the time I got it open the entire camp was awake because of the guy's insane rantings. Somehow while chasing Dave, he'd also knocked the propane stove near the fire pit they'd assembled from rocks. While the flames were out, the embers were still smoldering. Things probably wouldn't have happened if one of the others hadn't freaked out just as I was climbing out of the cooler with the hummus. One moment I'm trying to throw Dave his damned snack, the next I'm watching as the lid pops open and the oil lands in the fire pit.

 

It's hard to know what happened next because I was knocked back into the cooler. The only things I know for certain is that there was an explosion and there were feathers flying everywhere. Then I lost consciousness when a brick of tofu fell on my head. By the time I came to it was morning, Dave looked like an escapee from Colonel Sanders' kitchen, and the guy who attacked us was being loaded into a padded truck even as the others were picking over the remains of their camp.

 

And where was Cecil (Dovahgerbil) during this? Visiting relatives in Topeka! He was the lucky one. The next time Dave asked me to help him with one of his birdbrained ideas, I told him to go cluck himself.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

"How do you spell relief? L-E-M-M-I-N-G!"

 

There's one thing about being any creature with Asperger's that just sucks: the digestive issues. My gastrointestinal system is trying to kill me, I swear. First by causing me to balloon in terms of weight. According to my vet, lemmings should only weight .05 pounds and I weight five pounds (23 grams vs. 2300). I'm a hundred times my ideal weight! And lemmings should be herbivores, not omnivores. Yet he can't explain how I'm otherwise healthy as a horse and able to digest meat. Nor can he explain how I'm blue, so these inconsistencies may be related. Ah, I really am a mutant freak!

 

But what really bugs me is how frequently I get stomach issues. Less stomach aches and more gas. Especially since I started eating turmeric. Lemmings are supposed to subsist on roots, my vet says. And the root of the turmeric plant is supposed to be good for you, according to (reportedly fraudulent) research. All I know is it helps keep my little guts regular and I like it in curries. Especially chicken vindaloo, which Dave doesn't know about so keep your mouths shut. The smell has already defoliated the oak outside my burrow and caused the birds nesting in it to start gagging. There's no sound more disturbing than hearing birds going from singing to screaming in agony. On the other hand, it makes for great payback for them constantly pooping on my front porch.

 

Aggravating the stomach issues--including chronic gastritis--is the simple fact I keep getting mild bacterial infections. I'm hesitant to take antibiotics because I have a reputation as the dour, humorless one. And the dosage recommended would most assuredly turn me into a mass of mold. I'm not ready to be a fungi.

 

I'd best wrap this up. I'm starting to feel myself swelling up again and I'd rather not turn into a bald pink ball for Cecil and Dave. Again.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Attack of the (Zom)bees

 

I was sweeping my front porch yesterday morning when Ted came barreling out of the woods. His rear was covered in the stingers of honeybees. That in itself isn't weird given his love of fresh honey. Cliche, I know, and Ted could teach Winnie the Pooh a thing or two about loving honey. What was weird was what the bees did: they attacked in coordinated waves. Naturally this caused a bit of a "buzz" among us critters. Were the bees organizing themselves? Had they finally learned how to "bee" proactive about stopping predators from taking their precious honey?

 

I was drafted into talking to them since I'm the only one who speaks Bee. You humans think we animals coexist in harmony naturally. But the truth is we engage in tense diplomacy. Predators get X amount of kills, usually the ones no one likes, while prey gets Y amount of years to grow and mate and have Z number of offspring. Not that both sides don't break the deal from time to time; I used to know a buck who treated his harem like trash, so the ladies asked a wolf pack to kill and eat him even though he still had some years left. And of course things go out the window when we're dealing with human hunters--and especially poachers. I, personally, have turned the tables on some hunters and still have the trophy of a six-point stogie sucker I bagged five years ago on my den wall.

 

When I went to see what the problem was, I found out the bees had been exposed to something nasty. Not zombie flies, not chemicals, but..."reality" television! The queen is now a hopeless addict to the contrived drama that passes for entertainment among the sheeple. And her response to anyone who might interrupt her viewing time is to send out her children to drive off anything that might interfere. She didn't care if they died shortly after stinging something; all she does is eat, mate, and lay hundreds of eggs a day, all the while watching shows like Big Brother. But she did agree to give Ted his honey fix in exchange for a real power connection for the portable satellite TV someone had "abandoned" near the hive; at the time it was hooked up to a solar panel so it only worked during the daytime.

 

No one knew how it happened since that area of the forest is pretty secluded. But this morning we found some eco-zealots rallying around the hive as "another example of humanity's corruption of nature." This is where things took an even weirder turn, as it turns out that the TV and the reality television were part of an experiment by the local university's naturalism department to see how animals reacted. The two groups began arguing between themselves, eventually leading to a brawl to decide who "knew what was best for the wildlife."

 

While they were arguing, nobody noticed us stealing stealing the batteries from their vehicles and a DC converter to act as a temporary generator for the hive's TV. The queen's happy, Ted is happy that he's able to get his honey again, and for now those humans are in jail after assaulting a ranger who came to break up the brawl. But I have to admit that the eco-freaks were right in part; humans did "corrupt" a part of nature by exposing it to "reality" shows. Had the scientists chosen something like sitcoms things wouldn't have degenerated like this.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Friends Don't Eat Friends, Apparently

 

If you like chicken, don't be friends with one. The guilt trips you get for ordering Kenfucky Tried...

 

I've been going through serious chicken withdrawal as a result. No chicken taquitos, no chicken dumplings, and certainly no chicken vindaloo! I can't help it. I'm addicted. Many is the night I've lain awake, sweating, practically tasting some of the Colonel's original recipe or a fowl curry. Then I have to face the next day with no sleep and a horrible hankering for poultry. If I don't sleep enough, I start to sleepwalk. If Melissa is around, it's not a huge problem since it gives her an excuse to tie me up for a change. But when I'm alone I may awaken to find myself doing almost anything. Lately things have taken a turn for the strange...er, stranger.

 

It started the night of my last post. I had this horribly vivid dream that I was building a massive wooden fire pit. And when I woke up I had splinters in my paws and my butt. The next night I dreamed I was riding Moose down the herbs and spices aisle of a supermarket, even stopping by the produce department for some garlic and lemon. That time I was awoken by the honking of a car, only to find I really was riding Moose! His antlers held grocery bags filled with...herbs, spices, garlic, and lemon. As well as a bag from a liquor store carrying a case of imported German beer. Moose, the lovable lug, told me I had asked him to help me shop in exchange for some of his favorite Deutsche lager.

 

That's when I knew I was sleepwalking again. To make matters worse, I don't really remember what I did that day. I was sort of in and out of consciousness. Cecil, Dave, Melissa, and Ted all agreed to watch over me last night. Melissa even tied me down to the bed. I dreamed I was a magician escaping from a locked room, then that I was a chef chasing down a chicken who refused to get in my pot. At one point I even shot the chicken-arrow from Hot Shots Part Deux at my quarry.

 

Next thing I knew I was tackled to the ground by a gerbil and a mouse while a chicken pecked me on the head. I had been chasing after Dave after slipping the ropes, forcing Cecil and Melissa to stop me. My chicken chum was expressing his irritation at my behavior as well. I'd shot him in the thigh with one of those toothpicks with the red plastic strips on one end from a bow made with a twig and a rubber band.

 

Well, some good came of this. The hospital staff says I'm just frustrated and exhausted. And there's nothing wrong with liking chicken. I'll be out by Monday. And tonight's dinner is roast chicken!

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Folks, be sure to let me know what you like or dislike about these stories. Or what you'd like to hear more about. It's so H-O-T in the glen right now--and bone dry this close to Independence Day, eep!--my brain is hard boiled. Lemmings are arctic critters! Why did I move to this state?!

[SimpleSpectre]

These stories being wacky and silly are quite entertaining to read when you post them, well written as well. Makes me chuckle and puts me in a better mood. Keep it up mate! ?

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Junk Junkies

 

My friend, Sarah the human, asked me to go with her to some garage sales for the purpose of antiquing. I'm not sure why she would ask a shaved lemming small enough to fit in her hand rather than her boyfriend, but I learned long ago not to ask questions when it comes to women. Males of any species are just not equipped to handle the complexities of the female mind.

 

At every sale we saw men haggling over the price of things that had no apparent value. Old distributor caps, the bent blade to a lawnmower, rusty pieces of a bike cut with a torch, and other things I couldn't even identify. More than once we heard the husbands of the women holding these sales arguing to keep things like old paint cans with half an inch of pain left inside, car parts that weren't even worth scrap, vinyl albums so scratched up they would never be playable again, eight-track players with no tapes, and broken sports equipment. That's not the first time either of us had noticed this hoarding instinct in human males, but it was the first time we saw how men don't really throw out their junk. They trade it or sell it to some other guy.

 

As we drove she asked me if that was universal. I pointed out that she was asking a lemming, and one with Asperger's at that. If things I own wear out, break, or no longer possess any current or future value, I throw them out, donate them, or recycle them. Hoarding useless junk seems to be the province of "healthy" males, and not just human ones. Cecil and Dave both have deluxe tackle boxes filled with various electronics components separated by type and rating, even though most of it is decades old and obsolete. That isn't even going into their hoard of circuit boards and other salvaged crap, broken pewter fantasy figurines, and books from when they attended tech school twenty years ago that are now completely outdated. They claim they'll use them to build some big diorama complete with little electronic lights and sounds.

 

Lipps rents a storage unit filled with boxes. Those boxes hold nothing but ticket stubs from movies, concerts, and conventions. Then there are the "free samples" he acquires from various pharmaceutical companies. Pens, notepads, things that light up but don't do anything, even hemorrhoid cushions. He insists he'll use all of them build a floating platform when he retires.

 

Moose...doesn't hoard anything, actually. The only thing he "collects" are empty chip bags and dip tubs and tins that are hauled off to the dump every few weeks. For being such a simple guy...er, moose, he's found happiness in his love for pro wrestling. If only we could all be able to find contentment in simplicity.

 

As for me, the only "junk" I hang onto is a rubber chicken wrapped in heavy chains and locked inside a nesting series of boxes. I tried getting rid of it, once. It was on the pillow next to me when I woke up the next morning. Nor could I let a cursed object like Terry, the Evil Rubber Chicken, out into the world with a clear conscience. If I just ignore his dark whispers I'll be fine and he'll be no danger to anyone.

 

No, I will not turn the local politicians into garden fertilizer! Start a movement to make it so people have to prove they can figure out how to open a bag of airline peanuts before they're allowed to breed? Well...maybe...

[Ernest Lemmingway]

FLYING MONKEYS ARE COMING OUT OF MY BUTT! THE WALLS ARE COVERED IN TINY SLUGS THAT LOOK LIKE DONALD TRUMP! THE MOON IS LAUGHING AT ME! THE GROUND IS COCKTAIL UMBRELLAS COVERING MARGARITAS! HELP!

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Moose's Magic Mushroom Madness

 

As I write this I'm still detoxing after eating pizza tainted with shrooms. Long-time readers may have picked up that Moose's "leavings" are primed to grow funky fungus. Well, some kids from the state U figured that out and apparently decided to use them as toppings. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

 

A small group of college kids came to the glen three days ago. Nothing special, aside from them building a six-foot wide fire pit and laying down enough charcoal to make us all nervous. It is fire season and the dry, hot days have turned the place into a tinderbox. Well, every day they would fire up a massive plancha--flat iron grill--and cook. Grilled meats and veggies, massive omelets, even some homemade tortillas. While they were busy trying to avoid burning whatever they were cooking because they made too much, this little blue...er, still-pink lemming made out like a bandit stealing a couple of roasted chilies here, a few ribs there, even some chicken thighs when Dave wasn't looking.

 

Then, yesterday, they decided to make a giant pizza. After watching them for three hours I started spacing out what they were adding. One of them must have discovered Moose's mushrooms and decided it would be a good idea to add them without making sure they weren't toxic first. There were some warning signs before I sneaked a slice...or two. Like the fact that the kids were running around screaming. I thought it was because they'd added some ghost chilies to their pizza; even a former chili head like me steers clear of those things!

 

Within half an hour of finishing off my "share," I began to feel that familiar sense of detachment from myself. Then the monkeys came. Flying, winged monkeys coming out my fuzzy butt! "Auntie 'Em! Auntie 'Em!" I hate those sinister simians!

 

In a blind panic I entered what I thought was my burrow. Except my burrow doesn't have slugs that look like the Putz of the United States. "We got a bad deal!" "Lock up their kids so they won't come here!" "Trickle down economics will work this time!" AAAAHHHH!!!

 

While I searched desperately for some salt, I saw the moon laughing. Except it was a new moon! Just a dark orb laughing hysterically in the sky. And the ground was suddenly made up of cocktail parasols stuck into giant margaritas! I hate tequila!

 

Somehow I found my way up a screaming juniper, throwing shrieking berries at the Chump-slugs that got too close. I guess I passed out at some point because the next thing I can remember clearly is finding myself in an evergreen, paws stained blue-green from the berries I 'd tossed at some rocks on the ground. As I crawled back to my real burrow I saw those kids coming down off their own trips. None of them looked very good, though one kept screaming, "Praise Cheese-us! The Mozzarella Messiah!"

 

I'd best wrap this up. I keep seeing flashes of a bunny in the corners of my eyes. It must be flashbacks. There's no way a rabbit would dare come in here. Blip, blip! ?

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Critter Labor

 

Sometimes I wonder why humans call themselves the dominant species on the planet. As evidence, I present the group called "managers." Admittedly some are actually good, but in my experiences everything ever done in the Dilbert comic strip is true to life. Evil, pointy-haired, dumb-as-rocks sadists who take joy in making their peons' employees' jobs harder than they need to be. Ignorant little tyrants so detached from reality that they just make things worse.

 

I got "downsized" a couple months back and then immediately hired back on as a contractor for five times what I was making before. Isn't reducing headcount supposed to cut costs rather than increase them? The fact that they'd employee a lemming was a major red flag. Or at least, that they'd employee me openly. Usually they have us critters behind the scenes, doing the real work while those managers and the human employees toil in drudgery.

 

I often joke that the company's network is held together "with spit and chewing gum" because the managers keep slashing the budget to maintain and upgrade the infrastructure. Only recently they cut the budget again and now we can't afford the chewing gum! Naturally the whole network failed as a result and wound up costing the department nearly a quarter of the yearly operating budget for the year in both lost work and required hardware and software upgrades. And who gets saddled with the grunt work of setting everything up? No, not the human employees but the critters: a lemming, a beaver, three ducks, and a b-b...bunny!

 

We got to spend ten hours a day, six days a week, for two weeks getting everything installed and running properly. Then we have to hand off the presentation of how the new stuff works to the human employees who don't know anything about it. No credit for our work besides the token overtime pay, not even a thank you. You humans think you accomplished half of what exists today? No! We critters have always been there, working behind the scenes, getting things done. Columbus didn't discover the Caribbean, it was sea turtles that guided his ships--which his crew then ate. Winchester didn't invent the repeating rifle, his dog did. And no humans invented the World Wide Web interface, a couple of white lab mice did in an attempt to take over the world. Actually I'm not so sure they didn't succeed in that plan.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Moose's Medical 'Mergency

 

I'm sure everyone has at least one friend who doesn't listen. To what their friends tell them, to what their spouses tell them, to what their doctors tell them. Well, in the grove, that friend is Moose. For years we've been telling him to ease off on the bean dips; re-fried, hummus, basically anything made with legumes. Besides some of them being extraordinarily fatty and containing things bad for anyone, he was also consuming an awful lot of the greasiest corn chips known to man and animal: Frito's. Luckily Moose also eats a lot of berries and greens when he's not watching pro wrestling...but it's not often he's not watching pro wrestling. Come to think of it, I still don't know how a bull moose with the brains of a...well, wrestling fan, earns any money. None of us ever see him doing anything besides eating and watching Pay-Per-View.

 

Anyway, Moose's veterinarian called us and told us to watch out because his last exam didn't go too well. His abdomen was extremely swollen and they initially thought it was some sort of infection. Instead it turned out to be a massive case of flatus. By their estimates he could fuel a natural gas-powered car from one coast to the other without stopping to refuel. I always thought beans were good roughage and helped clean out the system. Turns out there's a point of excess and Moose had pole-vaulted over it. Either he cut way back or one of two things would happen: his entire digestive tract would explode or he'd release enough methane to raise the Earth's temperature three degrees--that's Celsius, too.

 

Of course telling a bunch of forest critters to try and stop a creature that outweighs them hundreds or even thousands of times over is pretty pointless. We can't stop him from doing a thing. And once he's riled up, he's relentless. Sort of an antlered steamroller. Not something any of us want to provoke.

 

Well, about eight days ago the humans of this state had a holiday where they're allowed to light fireworks. And, shockingly, the tinder-dry conditions started a fire! At this point the lot of us have contingency plans for when man--or Nature, that bitch--decides to start the pyrotechnics. Mine was to hunker down in the burrow--well, okay, a concrete block with pre-formed tunnels and rooms sunk into the ground--and wait it out. But before any of us could do anything we had to make sure Moose was out of danger. Once he gets into a wrestling match he won't leave it. Not even if there's a literal fire under his butt.

 

We managed to redirect the satellite feed to a portable viewer and have him follow it just as the fire was getting close. He hadn't taken two steps before his belly began rumbling and next thing any of us knew there was a massive blue fireball in the sky and the fire sputtered out from a lack of oxygen. That should have been cause for a celebration except...all the pressure released caused Moose's gastrointestinal tract to collapse since it was gas that was holding everything open at that point. Unlike human hospitals, animal hospitals usually don't run ambulances. So we had to cart him into town so the vets could take care of him. Which is not easy when you're pushing an animal that weighs a third more than an adult grizzly. Not to mention all the harassment from Animal Control when folks see a lemming, a gerbil, a chicken, a duck, and a bear pushing a moose on a cart down the highway.

 

Poor Moose, he got put on a strictly liquid diet and is still in the hospital at this time. Worse still, without that constant diet of beans his antlers shed themselves. Normally they shed in the fall but Moose hadn't shed his in almost two years. And all that protein had caused them to grow to record levels. Twenty points! His neck muscles are so large he doesn't really have a neck anymore. And since he used his antlers to open cans of bean dip, he can't do it until they grow back neck spring. There is something really wrong about listening to a half-ton animal cry like a little girl over the phone.

 

Since he was the one to put out the fire and save all our furry or feathered butts, we've decided to help him out once he gets back. Albeit this time we're making sure he eats something besides legume-based paste and corn chips so oily they burn like a candle wick. It would be pointless to try and get him to watch something besides soap operas disguised as fixed athletics matches. That damage is permanent.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

Smeg for Brains

 

The local PBS station just had marathons of Seasons 11 and 12 of Red Dwarf. In preparation I went and binge watched the previous ten seasons. The first eight seasons are 12 episodes each, just under six hours total to finish one. I haven't seen so much idiocy that somehow gets things done since the last time I watched a report on the doings of the American government. Neither have I eaten so many curries and drank so much...er, not lager but (ginger) ale and (root) beer. Every time I close my eyes I see the Red Dwarf crew and one of their nemeses like the Gelf, the Polymorph, or even the Talkie Toaster! I think I'd rather have my anger and sadness sucked out of me than deal with an appliance that insists on me eating tons 'o toast.

 

When I finally went to move from the couch I was jabbed by a thousand tiny poppadom shards and, like the T-Rex, I was hit by an attack. After the first 48 hours (and the first eight seasons) my head resembled Kryten's. The next two seasons are only three episodes long, but my body wouldn't countenance more time without sleep. So I passed out cold for who knows how long? Both Melissa and Millie came by, setting aside their mutual disdain to check on me. That was a mistake when you consider I was eating spicy food and hadn't showered for two days. By the time they woke me up they had activated the emergency ventilation system and dragged me outside for a hosing and a scrub. I was just that wasted.

 

And I still had another twelve hours of episodes left.

 

It seems that both of them are Smegheads as well as they insisted on joining me. They even got all the references. Here I thought they were both just obsessed with my nuts. I mean, one is a squirrel and the other is the most intelligent species in the galaxy, both of whom always eat all my cashews, pecans, and almonds. And one of those is a metaphor. They immediately resumed their rivalry once the ending credits of the last episode rolled, though. By then I was talking to my toaster...and it was talking back! I never knew a device meant to toast bread could be so conversant in existential nihilistic philosophy, the works of Plato, and the history of agriculture. Actually that last one does make sense; humans learned to farm to cultivate grains but not for bread, for beer...which was originally made by soaking bread in water.

 

The two of them were kind enough to take me to the animal hospital after the refrigerator started discussing Marxist philosophy. I never liked that fridge much. It was never willing to let me get as much ice as I wanted without jamming. Now I understand why. ?

[Ernest Lemmingway]

End-of-Summer Woes

 

Today marks the start of school for many kids here. When I was younger that would have been a reason to mourn. Now it's a reason to rejoice! No more kiddies on the road, working at my local Taco Bell, or hanging out in the video arcades and telling me why everything I say and do is wrong. Yes, teenagers talk to lemmings. Maybe that's because they believe that they are like lemmings. Only we don't jump off of cliffs just because everyone else is doing it; we do it because we're migrating to territory with more food. They do it because they want to fit in.

 

It also marks one of the more awkward times of the year for me. See, when I shave my fur for summer, it really itches when it grows in to a certain point. I'm rubbing my butt against a rough rock because I can't reach my stubby little tail to scratch! Which causes more than a few strange looks when tourists spot me. And this pink skin under the blue fur turns a raw red after a while. It's also taught me why dogs and cats sometimes chew their own limbs. You try having an itch that just won't go away!

 

Before anyone suggests I bathe in calamine lotion, that doesn't work for me. Plus it dyes my fur as pink as my flesh. I've had enough of being called "Pinkie" for one year, thank you.

 

But there is one area I prefer to keep smooth. A...rather sensitive area, at that. One that I'd rather not get a nick and have to use a styptic pencil on. Depilatories are not an option (I once got a bad chemical burn I'd rather not talk about) so that leaves...waxing. I will say this much: women really do have higher pain tolerances! They give birth, they help carry the men in their lives, and they...wax without screaming bloody murder. By now my friends and neighbors know that when my burrow shakes from my screaming, that means I'm waxing the boys.

 

Besides itching and waxing, the end of summer also means it's time to start hoarding food for winter and to prepare for the onset of hunting season. Technically hunting in a national park is illegal, but has that ever stopped the nutcases in this country? And with a very "special" nutcase in the Oval Office who wants to take away the protected status of national parks so industrialists can strip mine them, things are looking especially hairy this year. Some of the local yokels are supporting it as long as they "kin hunt varmints outta season!"

 

Actually hunting season goes hand-in-hand with hoarding food for the winter. Not every hunter comes back, after all. And you humans taste a lot like pork. I'd show you some of my trophies, but the people they used to be attached to are still listed as "missing" rather than "legally dead." Much like the Native Americans, we critters use every piece of our hunts. Did you honestly believe trees like the giant sequoias got that big all on their own? No! We help fertilize them with whatever bits we can't eat or use. Which, with the typical American diet, is honestly most. The only thing fattier and more carcinogenic than the things Americans eat are the Americans themselves!

 

So if you'll excuse me, I've got to clean my rifle and find my gun rest. With Moose having shed his antlers I'll need to provide for myself this year.