FLYING SQUIRRELS REDUX —————- by Steve Nadis
Gatemouth often says that in desperate times, one can always resort to jokes about flying squirrels. This is such a time for me, so I’m following Gatemouth’s famous dictum. Just the other day, my editor sent back my flying squirrel article, claiming it needed a major rewrite. “Rewrite?” I said. “What do you mean?” He explained that basically the piece was “flat.” I did well on the expository level, describing the biomechanics of gliding and all that, but I fell short, abysmally so, on the natural history level. “This needs something–I don’t know what–something to bring it alive.”
“Not alive?” I asked, incredulously. “You mean like dead? Well…, here’s an idea. How about an article on flying corpses? Does that work for you?”
Posted by
at
15:34:42
This one’s so bad it hurt my eyes. Keep it up and I’ll have bifocals.
Thanks Burt, you gave me a great idea. Maybe I can cut a deal with my local optometrist. I should get a referral fee at the very least.
Actually, flying corpses would do it for me. I mean, it’s pretty hard to think of anything more attention-getting.
But they better not be flying squirrel corpses. Maybe it could just be dead Republican ideology. Naw, that sounds boring, too. How about just the President and his entire cabinet flying from a tree into the deepest part of New Orleans’s muck? I think CNN would probably pay to broadcast that live.
I’ll need to contact my editor right away. I now see the latest idea I advanced merely scratched the surface.
Ought to have that editor move into this cabin of mine. We’ve been infested w/ flying squirrels… TWICE! Nothing boring about these highly intelligent rodents. They TALK to each other at night. Too smart for traps. Gotta go after ‘em w/ a knife or a rifle. VERY social creatures. Giant heads/ eyes. (Was this too boring?
Maybe you need to talk more about his friend, the talking moose.
Hey Marko, your comment wasn’t boring but maybe a little scary. After all, we’re talking about friendly furry critters–FOBs (Friends of Bullwinkle), to be precise.