Oh No...Not Again

I came home from work today to find out that my sister Penny has been missing all day. Trevor and Sandy said they saw her at the watering hole around 10:00 am., and that was the last anyone saw of her. I had a particularly rough day at work so the last thing I wanted to do was to have to go out looking for Penny... again. Oh, I showed Stan my sketches for the Geranimal knockoff line and he admitted that they were much better than Steve's but said that he had already promised Steve the account so so I'm outta luck. I'm amazed that Stan would let politics get in the way of producing a successful garment line. Apparently Steve's recent efforts have made the Garanimals fiasco look like high art. So I gotta come home to this. Yuck. Knowing Penny she'll probably show up the second I go looking for her. Its happened before... poor kid. Penny is 10 years older than me but the thing is is that she's dumb as they come, and I don’t mean that in a cruel way at all. She just is. And the thing about these little disappearing acts of hers is that they scare the living shit out of me every time. I love Penny more than anyone else in the world and I make no bones about it. Honestly I don’t know if it’s her low intellect or her basic character that makes her so sweet , but she has gotten herself into some really dangerous situations because of it. I remember a few months back mom let Penny go for a quick stroll with baby Pete. After they had been gone way too long Trevor and I set out to go look for them. When we found them, she was lying next to a dying puma cub singing to it and trying to hold its head off the wet ground. The animal was clearly on its way out and doing the sad hyperventilating quickstep breathing thing that dying animals do. It had no idea she was there. Baby Pete was just a few yards away dancing and noodling around with his trunk thinking that Penny was singing to him . The irony was breathtaking. Another time Trevor and Rachel spotted her chatting it up with a deadly asp. They begged her to back away as quietly as she could but she was so busy with her childish questions she didn't hear them. In hindsight, The best question was: Where's the rest of your body? It seemed that she was under the impression that he was the talking disembodied trunk of an elephant. That should have really pissed the asp off but it turned out to be Donald Craft, the guy who runs the food cart downtown during lunch hour and he had somehow figured out that Penny was Carl's kid. (my dad too, obviously). If it had been anyone else, she would have had it. I'll be glad when this little episode is over...

Wait for it!

How do I explain this to him? Yesterday Brad said he had something he was going to bring me , and bring something he did! Three neon pumpkin-orange t-shirts with “It’s an ungulate thing, you wouldn’t understand” written in black capital letters on the back. One for him, one for Tracy and one for little old me. The blinding orangeness I could handle, and I didn’t even mind the sentiment, derivative as it is, but I just can’t wear clothes that have writing on them. It freaks me out. I’m a really private guy and I don’t dig waving my personal business or opinions about in public. Even brand name stuff gets me. I mean, I already had to pay for the damn thing and now you want me to go around hocking your wares for you . Do your own damn work…ya screw. My aunt Brenda got me a Tommy Hilfiger jacket last year for my birthday and I covered up the name with duct tape. She was furious. She knows me better than that. She knows I don’t go for that sort of crap. God, even thinking about it raises my bile. Ug. Well it’s pretty clear Brad is deeply proud of this dubious accomplishment. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get out of it. I was going to talk to Stan (the head art director) about Steve’s shitty designs for the Garanimal knockoff line. I can’t imagine going into his office wearing “It’s an ungulate thing, you wouldn’t understand” and preaching to him about aesthetic no-nos. I told Brad that I had a meeting with Stan later on and it would be unprofessional to wear a t-shirt in front of him. Then Brad said that maybe Stan would like it and give me a raise. Brad has this magical ability to quietly, effortlessly make you feel like a real heel when you’re trying to get out of something. And then I thought of it. I said: Brad, think about it, Stan is not an ungulate. He might take it the wrong way... That was my out. He bought it. And it's actually kinda true. I’m beginning to wonder if it was such a good idea to make nice with Brad. It was just Arby’s for Chrissake!

A Horrible Thing that Needs to Die

The only thing I hate more than singing the Happy Birthday Song is having the Happy Birthday Song sung to me. But check this out. Today is Brian's birthday and the freak completely gets off on the song. Like it was the first time that anyone in the world at any time had ever sung that song to anyone on their birthday. He stood there with his trademake shit eating grin, conducting us like were were his own freakin' personal Oompah band. He seemed very pleased, which for Brian always has a sinister edge. Is it a gorilla thing or a Brian thing? Then he went and did another thing I hate. With his uncanny aplomb for overkill he made a huge deal over cutting the cake and insisting that everybody have a piece, I hate cake. No, I despise cake. The very thought of cake makes me go into diabetic shock. So having a 450 pound gorilla shoving a piece of the stuff in my face did not put me in the best of spirits. I took it of course and and tried to give it to Brad but apparently he hates cake too. He also mentioned that we have another thing in common... that he and i are both ungulates. I wonder if he was referring to this past Monday when I was such a jerk to him. I had said to Tracy, the giraffe in the mailroom, that "us ungulates gotta stick together." At the time, I was so put off with Brad that I had forgotten tapirs are ungulates as well. I had thought he was out of earshot. But I could have been mistaken. He also said he had something for me and that he'd bring it in tomorrow. I'm curious...

WTF!!!!!

Stan gave Steve the go ahead on the Geranimal knockoff designs. Unbelievable! Is he freakin' colorblind? is it a species thing? Are they sleeping together? A crocodile and a Ecuadorian tree sloth? gughghu. I gotta have a little sit down with Stan. We get along pretty well so maybe he'll listen to me when I tell him he's LOST HIS G_DAMMED MIND! Stan is usually so methodical and deliberate with his decisions and they are generally very good. Any quibble over aesthetics we may have are over trivial points...But this? I'm gonna end here today because my brain is in high gear. Need to figure out how to go about this. If anyone has any ideas, please leave them in the comment box. That would be great.

Home Free

Fred is back! Huzzah! Goodbye mailroom. I’m so glad to be able to get back to work but I have to say I was a bit harder on Brad than I intended to be. After the incident with uncle Paul I really got to see firsthand what it’s like to be low man on the totem pole. When I bought Brad a double roast beef from Arby’s as an apology, he actually teared up a little. I told him I was sorry for being such an ass and he said he hadn’t noticed. He gets so much shit from everybody else he probably hadn’t. I just got the go ahead to start writing copy for the new line of Garanimal knockoffs. The designs are horrendous. The illustration of the elephant is downright racist. The whole line is an incongruous smudge of manga kitsch and eastern European creepiness all in the colors of a filthy toilet. Clearly one from Steve. Give a correspondence degree in art to a crocodile and this is what you get. I’ll make a few polite suggestions then shut my mouth. Steve can’t take criticism so I’ll let him hang himself. I’ve been messing around with a few design ideas myself and when Steve is kicked off the project I’ll just “happen” to have a few sketches lying around…how Machiavellian of me…he he

Hell on the Homefront

Well things seem to be getting back to normal at home this week. My uncle Paul just got through his first episode of musht so he’ll be paying for that for the next few months. He’s got a lot of apologizing to do to a lot of world class grudge holders. I mean, I love my mom and aunts to death, but this is exactly the kind of thing they live for. At any given time someone has to be in the shithouse and this time it was Paul. Musht is a real bad time for us male elephants and I can tell you I’m not looking forward to my first venture into that state. Everyone in musht goes south, behavior-wise, but I have to admit that musht aside, Paul really turned into an unbelievable dick. He was using the foulest language in the loudest voice I have ever heard. No kidding. He made a point to interrupt any conversation going on, find an opposing point, call the males pricks and the ladies the “c” word then stomp off in a fit. It was nasty. Now I’m pretty much the only elephant who will talk to him. No one else will make eye contact with him so he just skulks around sorrowfully looking for anyone to forgive him. They will eventually, but he’s gonna have to wait a real long time. One thing that really pisses me off though is the way Rachel and Brenda are pulling the same silent treatment crap as all the others. Both of them were in oestrus at the height of Paul’s musht and neither of them were bitching about his lousy attitude while he was rutting on them. That’s just so hypocritical but just like them. I think I’ll see if Paul maybe would like to go off with me for a few days just the two of us. It’ll give everyone a chance to cool down a bit.