Tuesday, November 21, 2006

A tail of Pickles

“You will not touch my pickles!”

It had been a long day for Farmer Chockles. Earlier he was forced to assault Jermon with his pitchfork and now Clarint was trying to unlawfully steal his pickles
.
“Lay off you old Mackledam,” Clarint said as he stroked the pickle basket. “I ain’t trying to steal these pickles. I’m just going to borrow them and store them in my abdomen.”

Farmer Chockles’ temper was rising.

“You will do no such thing young man!” he exclaimed. “You think I don’t know about you? I seen how you look at my pickles. Your eyes all aglazed, hoping you can steal one to put in your pants.”

Clarint smiled a mischievous smile. “That’s right,” Farmer Chockles continued, “I know what young fellas do with pickles. But I’ll see none of that today!”

Clarint shrugged, pulled up his pants and walked off. Farmer Chockles placed the pickle back in the basket and walked back into his hut. The fire was burning inside, and the pot that sat over it was rapidly heating. Farmer Chockles pulled up a stool and started to cut pickle slices into the pot. He had spent all day out in the pickle fields and now he would have a rich reward of pickle stew. He so loved pickle stew. The secret was to use three full pickles, only four pinecones as opposed to the usual six and then add just a little bit of goat urine. Most prefer the traditional mixture of cow urine and squirrel semen, but not Farmer Chockles. All he needed was that goat urine and he was set. He was halfway through cutting the second pickle when Sabvert flew in through an open window and vomited into the pot.

“Sweet fucking mastodon!” Farmer Chockles exclaimed at the crow. “What the hell are you doing?”

Sabvert cocked his head. “Spices,” he said.

“What did you eat today?” Farmer Chockles asked suspiciously.

“ Spiders, honey, berries,” the bird said looking around the hut.

“Liar!” Farmer Chockles yelled as he threw down his knife. “ You had squirrel semen, didn’t you! Answer me!”

Sabvert flew over to the bed and began to clean his feathers. “Just a little bit” he said,” it was free. Laren the Patchy was having a spring-cleaning and he was giving it to anyone who wanted it.”

Farmer Chockles shook his head. “Well michy michy magoo,” he said. “If I offered to shit on your head for free, would you take that too?”

Sabvert stopped cleaning and looked up. “Are you offering?” he asked.

“Oh get out of here,” Farmer Chockles said as he sat back down and continued cutting.

“I ain’t leaving,” Sabvert said, “I wants some stew.”

“I thought you just ate,” Farmer Chockles said not looking up. “Isn’t your belly all full of squirrel semen?”

“Jekus, you sure are hung up on this whole squirrel semen thing aren’t you?” Sabvert said flying over to the window. “For your information, I only had a Dixie cup worth of the stuff.” And with that Sabvert flew off into the early evening sky.

Farmer Chockles continued making his stew.