EXCERPTS

Who Moved My TV?

    Once upon a time, not long ago nor far away, there lived two sewer rats whose names were Duff and Tuff. Like most ignorant rodents looking to survive, they didn't always have names, nor were they always friends. In fact, neither of them had even so much as sampled dumpster nachos together until one day a rain surge flooded the tunnel into which they'd run, and ejected them from their dark culvert, high up onto a soggy lawn in the forbidden daylight of Overground.
    At first the two were terrified, and unable to move. They just looked at each other for the first time, splayed out as they were on the wet grass, with their slick hair matted down. Then the one to be known as Duff said, "You ugly."
    Oddly, this statement got no reaction, even though it occurred somehow to Duff himself that it wasn't a very nice―much less constructive―observation to make. Here, in the daymare realm of suburban lunacy, it just seemed so appropriate Duff felt no guilt at all. So he repeated himself. "Did you hear me?" Duff asked. "I said 'you ugly.'"
    Now the other rat, as yet immobile, merely stared past him at the drainage culvert from which they had both been ejected, yet seemed to feel no disgrace or outrage at Duff's statement. And when he finally did reply, it was with another odd question, which was, "What's ugly?"
    Duff was puzzled by this response, and then felt a sense of awe overwhelming his terror as he realized he really shouldn't know what the word ugly meant, either. After all, with what was he making a comparison? Considering it, Duff eventually concluded there was something about being here―on this beautiful green lawn in broad daylight―that had somehow influenced such thoughts. Perhaps the very act of noticing how beautiful it was had somehow done it, if not considering the very concept of beautiful. In any event, the next thing he said was, "You Tuff."
    "Tuff?" asked Tuff, perplexed.
    Duff sighed, having noticed that Tuff had not only lifted his head, (while dodging the insults hurled at him), but had also managed to stand and swish his tail, allowing a warm breeze heated by the sun to dry out his fur. Duff tried to stand up himself, and failed. "Tuff," repeated Tuff, noticing how pathetic his new companion now looked by comparison. "I guess I am Tuff!" Then he frowned, which in sewer rats consisted of flashing one's lower teeth. "But you . . . you better get up off your duff and act tuff, or we both be seen, sure enough."              Back to Who Moved My TV?