Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Tuna Surprise

I've got to give it to Dung Bug, he made a great score this afternoon, Mom didn't even know she'd been hit. I'm still in a state of shock and awe at the speed of which Beetle moves on those little truncated stubs he calls legs juxtaposed with the speedlessness of Mom's apparently equally truncated slug she calls a brain. She's seriously slow on the uptake.

Apparently when all of Inigo's unfettered, undisciplined, careless energy is condensed into his four sausage limbs and pea sized brain it can be channelled into what can only be described as a food thieving laser of world domination proportions. It need only be focused on, say, a victims cheese and zap the cheese is gone, the victim is left wondering if they ever pulled cheese from the fridge in the first place. It's fairly remarkable to witness.

Mom was retrieving food stuffs from the refrigerator I was being super vigilant; my need to keep my eye on food over-road by my desire to keep my eye on Mom, I kept myself safely within the drop zone for any potential accidental releases, the heal of bread or a little piece of cheese. She placed a slice of cheese on the edge of the table and brought two slices of bread to the toaster. Busying herself with the toasting Inigo focused his laser on the cheese slice.

His stubby legs deployed his brick of a body over my head with surprising slowness; my brain dragging all of my eye's images through thick syrup before processing them in my brain, landing on the kitchen chair as effortlessly as a gymnast mounting a balance beam, with grace and hardly a whisper from the pads of his feet. I held my breath and stared as his canines hitched to the back end of the cheese slowly dragging it curling into his open maw. I could almost taste the cheese as the slice folded in on it's self and lingered for a moment in my view before it slid down his throat to swim with the belly swill of prior consumptions.

The room was still moving like a thick slow fog as Inigo unfurled his tongue from with in it's chamber of horrors and protruded it's length for the tuna bowl; he slowly turned his head, mocking me as our eyes met, he gave his full attentions to the bowl. His muzzle sank beyond the rim as he lowered his head into the mechanically processed fish, fragrant onion and dill released from the tuna mass. The sound of the fork being slung around the bowl by his tongue is a sound Mom had long ago been familiarized with. It was the sound of his undoing.

INIGO!!! Her words pierced the the sticky slowness like a butter knife, slit it down the middle and exposed the real time inside like a fresh wound. She shot across the floor to put out the little fire on the kitchen table that threatened to consume her tuna sandwich layer by layer before she could build it. Inigo made his escape and peeked around the doorway licking his lips for any last taste of the fish mash and onion and dill that might remain.

Mom examined the tuna and gave it a stir, as if stirring it changed the fact that Inigo had his grubby beak all up in it. Giving Beetle the stink eye Mom grabbed the toast and spread a layer of tuna mash on it, she reached for the missing cheese and then looked at Inigo again; from his hiding place he lifted his chin and gave a little cheesy burp.

Damn he's good I said to myself. My stomach, an empty chamber, rumbled an echoed and hungry reply.

No comments:

Post a Comment