[Critique Group 2] What yu shouldn't have received

[tuchyner5 at aol.com]

Hi Group 2,


 


The prompt you got accidently was obviously the first veryrough draft. Something like that should never get ut on the airways. But belowis the edited version if anyone is interested.


 


Leonard 


 



 


12 10 19   Unusual Encounters of the Strange Variety


 


I thought it was time to try to turn to humor. That is adifficult thing to do, so I hope the prompt will lend itself to that direction.Remember, you won’t have to do the given assignment.


 


I’ll simply give a few abbreviated examples:


 


When I was about 17 years old, I was fishing off a sea wallin St. Petersburg Beach.  A pelican was sitting about 10 yards awayeyeing my catch.  So I held up a fishabout a foot from stem to stern and offered it to him.  He didn’t hesitate.  He walked in a sideways, duck-waddle fashionand grabbed it out of my proffering hand. I never knew pelicans had serrationsalong their long bills.  I guess they arethere to keep a slimy fish from wiggling and flopping his way out of the bird’sbill. Consequently, my hand ended up slightly bloodied with long multiplescratches. Some gratitude.  He didn’tshow an iota of remorse. 


 


A similar thing happened with a squirrel, who are the wiseguy clowns of the wild kingdom, and they make me laugh all the time. Again, thesetting was St. Petersburg.The squirrel was looking down at me from the trunk of a tree outside ahospital, if my memory is correct. He looked friendly, so I stuck my hand outto him. I don’t know why. Maybe I expected him to shake it. Instead he camedown and bit a finger. I think he thought it was a nut.  When he discovered it was not, he climbedaway in disgust. Who could blame him?


 


I was visiting a theme zoo. I think it might have been LionCountry Safari in HillsboroCounty near Tampa. I was a rainy day, so I took an umbrella just in case.  
As I went by an enclosure housing one half-grown elephant, he took a shining tomy umbrella. He wanted it so, he grabbed it. What ensued was a tug of warbetween a human and an elephant. Eventually I won, but the umbrella was nolonger an umbrella. It was more like a strange looking pretzel.  I think he just wanted to play. 


 


Often, when I was a pre-teen, Mr. Struluwitz, a butcher downthe street, would pay me a quarter to deliver bloody paper bags filled withbutchered products.  Once, when I pressedthe customer’s doorbell, she came to the door bare chested. Well, I was a shy,inexperienced young boy. I wasn’t sure what was happening, so I just pretendedthere was nothing unusual, handed her the package and left. I’m still perplexedabout that one. 


 


Each of these stories could be embellished into an elaborateproduction. Don’t worry if people don’t laugh. The point is for you to get out of the box and have some fun in thewriting. You may be surprised, when trying to come up with things like this,that there were many amusing anecdotes like these in your life. 

                                                                                                                        

I’ve got to go now. The neighbor is at the door. I think shetook offense when Barny tried to eat her cat this morning.  I don’t know why she is so upset. Her catlooks fine to me.  
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