marel trout

June 1

This here, it is a real nice and sunny day.

Pia and Chessie, they are stretched out unconscious upon the lawn chairs with festive drinks containing little umbrellas and zucchini slices where their eyes ought to be. Nini, she is wearing a straw sun hat wreathed with plastic purple zinnias and she is on her knees troweling around the junipers. Mimulus Beak, he is selling electric toothbrushes to some wrens in the forsythias.

Me, I am wearing my new eyeglasses and I am setting under the weeping willow tree and I am eating bananas and I am reading this here Harry Potter book.

That Lord Voldemort, he is a terrible guy.

There goes Snooples. Snooples, she is mowing the lawn with the roly poly motorless lawn mower. Snooples, she is singing a song about a Bumble Bee.

There goes Snooples past again singing that Bumble Bee song.

There goes Snooples past again singing something about My Napsack On My Back.

There goes Snooples past again singing Westward Ho Tilapias.

Good gracious. I have forgotten to feed the Tilapia Fishes.

I shall mark my place in this here Harry Potter book with a banana peel and I shall go feed the Tilapia Fishes.

* * * * *

I have entered the dim and cavernous basement which smells like rhutabagas and I am reaching all around for the lightbulb chain.

The Tilapia Fishes, they are milling happily around the bubblers in their wading pools. The Tilapia Fishes, they are fanning their fins in a pleased manner. They are gazing up at this here can of Bulpers Tilapia Treat with large wet eyes.

I shall now sprinkle these here pellets of Bulpers Tilapia Treat upon the waters.

The Tilapia Fishes, they are contentedly gumming pellets of Bulpers Tilapia Treat.

Feeding the Tilapia Fishes, it is always very relaxing.

Huh.

Trout Fishing in America. He appears to be missing.

Perhaps Trout Fishing in America, he is dead. Fishes. Sometimes they up and die.

However there is no fish floating upon the waters with a glazed expression.

I shall feel around on the bottom of this here wading pool with my paws.

* * * * *

now everybody go right ahead and give this here a try!

Chickenloaf and Fifi and Ben, they are setting around the dining room table and they are struggling with chopsticks. Chessie, she is strangling a chopstick in her fist and she is jabbing it into her bowl of buttered rice.

CEASE THESE HERE CHOPSTICK ACTIVITIES IMMEDIATELY. TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA, HE HAS GONE MISSING.

June 3

We have been creeping around the basement with flashlights in search of Trout Fishing in America for 29 hours.

Snooples, she is on all fours and she is tip toeing along next to the fuel tank. Snooples she is wearing a little miner’s helmet with a light on the front. Snooples, she is calling heeeeeeeere trout fishing in america!

Chickenloaf, she is under some sort of bow-legged cast iron contraption with fancy lettering on the front and all you can see is her hind foots.

Chessie, she is frowning over a cardboard box of old doll clothes.

Me, I wonder where this here dank, dark tunnel festooned with musty cobwebs clutched by pale and bulbous spiders leads to.

I shall send Chessie down this tunnel.

June 7

Continuing to rummage through the basement in search of Trout Fishing in America.

Look what I found.

Fifi Laphroag, she is cradling a old greenish blue canning jar in her paws. The canning jar, it has some sort of tin conglomeration screwed to its neck. That tin conglomeration, it is full of evenly spaced holes. Pill bugs, they are living in the holes.

THAT THERE IS A OLD FASHIONED BOMB.

It is? Fifi Laphroag’s eyes, they have become large and round.

YUP THAT THERE IS A REAL OLD BOMB. THEY DO NOT MAKE THEM LIKE THAT ANYMORE.

Gosh.

Fifi Laphroag, she is admiringly turning the canning jar over and over in her paws.

It’s a chick waterer.

Pia, she is pushing up the sleeves of a oversize sweatshirt which I think is Mom’s. Pia, she is dumping a drywall bucket full of rusted nuts and bolts all over the floor.

NO IT IS A BOMB. ANYWAYS I AM PRETTY SURE IT IS A BOMB.

You fill it with water, and you turn it upside down. The chick’s put their beaks in the holes.

Huh. I did not know that.

NO WAY IT IS A BOMB.

It’s a chick waterer. Polesaw’s got a dozen of them in his hen house.

I AM CERTAIN IT IS A BOMB. THERE WAS ONE JUST LIKE IT ON THE HISTORY CHANNEL.

Fucking chick waterer.

Pia, she dumps a sack of moldy and soggy potting soil all over the rusted nuts and bolts. Speckled lizards, they scramble off in all directions.

No Tilapia here.

Pia, she dusts off her paws and marches over to the hot water heater.

Pia, she raps her knuckles on the hot water heater. Pia, she places her ear to the hot water heater.

June 11

We have dragged everything that is not bolted down out of the basement and we have placed everything in the driveway. Chessie, she is carting items around upon a rented forklift.

I bet Trout Fishing in America, he is hiding in one of these here photograph albums.

Ha ha ha! Here is photograph of Charlie. It is back when he was a little bitty kid.

Charle, he is holding a badmitten racket and he is wearing little trousers which come down only to the knees and are twisted sideways.

Here is Charlie in a Kitten Scout uniform plus knee socks. Charlie, he has a lot of Kitten Scout badges.

Here is Pia in a pink sunsuit and pink plastic flip flops, holding a doll with no clothes and no hair by one arm. This is at some amusement park. There is a roller coaster swooping off into the distance.

Here is one of them crinkly edged photographs from back in the days when the world was black and white. Some guy, he is wearing a straw hat and he is standing next to a pair of puzzled looking horses.

The date along the edge of this here photograph: It says 1901.

That there, it is probably Dad.

June 13

Well we have to vacuum the basement floor. Plus put everything back into its Rightful Place. Plus return the forklift before suppertime. Plus now we are grounded for 3 years.

Also: no Trout Fishing in America.

Also that photograph, it was not Dad.

June 15

MOM. I REQUIRE SIX HUNDRED AND NINETY DOLLARS IMMEDIATELY IN ORDER TO PLACE A LOST FISH NOTICE IN THE CLASSIFIED SECTIONS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE PHILADELPHIA ENQUIRER.

Forget it.

Mom simply does not know the value of the printed word.

That is okay I will use this here credit card of Dads.

 

June 17

Observing activities in the neighborhood underneath the Spiarea bushes using one of Dads antique box cameras.

The neighborhood underneath the Spiarea bushes, for some reason everything is upside down.

Two chipmunks wearing navy blue baseball caps, they are standing with a chipmunk-size bicycle between them and they are squealing furiously at one another. First one chipmunk, he yanks the bicycle toward himself. Then the other chipmunk, he yanks the bicycle toward himself. Every so often one or the other of them chipumunks, he pops straight up into the air.

Only of course, that chipmunk: he pops upside down. I cannot figure why that chipmunk, he does not fall off into outer space.

>click<

There. I have snapped a photograph of one of them chipmunks in midair with his mouth wide open and his fat little arms gesticulating wildly.

They are plastic! They are cheap!

Mimulus Beak, he is hopping upside down into the scene. Mimulus Beak, he is pushing a cart littered with various types of staple pullers.

Oh, they are not staple pullers. They are little toys.

Mimulus Beak, he is turning a key on the back of one of them little toys. He is setting the toy in front of a sparrow chick which has been setting sprattle legged on the sidewalk drawing with colored chalks. That toy, it buzzes around in a wobbly pattern, sputters, and keels over.

The sparrow chick, it hands Mimulus Beak three nickels and grabs up the little toy.

Mimulus Beak, he is winding the key on the back of another toy. Mimulus Beak, he sets that toy down in front of a fat little woodchuck which is jumping rope upside down.

Good gracious that toy, it has buzzed right off the face of the earth!

Oh I get it. It is a little airplane.

The fat little woodchuck, he gazes wistfully at that airplane.

That little airplane, it has buzzed into the side of my head.

June 20

CHESSIE WHAT THE HELL. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO KEEP JUNK OUT OF THE DRIVEWAY DAD SAID.

i am having a whuddyacallit. a yard sale.

Chessie, she is setting on one of her old kitten-size aluminum folding chairs. Spread out on her old kitten-size aluminum tea party table is a collection of old doll clothes with freezer tape price tags stuck onto them.

I pick up a pair of frilly pink panties. There is a scissored hole for a tail.

CHESSIE NOBODY IS EVER IN A BILLION YEARS GOING TO PAY $7,800 FOR AN ITEM SUCH AS THIS.

well there is this here thing which is called free enterprise. in case you did not know.

Chessie, she has folded her arms and she is scowling.

WELL ANYWAYS DAD IS GOING TO YELL.

Chessie, she glowers and starts kicking a table leg.

ALSO THIS: YOU WILL SUNBURN YOUR EARS.

Chessie glowers and kicks.

FINE STAY HERE AND SLIDE INTO OBJECTIFIED POVERTY. ME, I SHALL GO OVER TO MR. POLESAW’S AND I WILL MAKE SOME REAL MONEY.

Chessie glowers and kicks.

GROWING PUNKINS. THAT IS WHERE THE BIG MONEY IS.

Chessie glowers and kicks.

Pia, she has started the beat up old Miata. It is rattling and shaking and coughing and making a complicated knocking sound. Snooples, she is climbing in next to Pia, wearing her new round-toed red sneakers and her napsack on her back.

Pia, she is honking the horn, so I have to go.

June 23

Blowing spittle bugs off of Ninis Nasturtiums with the air compressor hose.

Chessie, she is still setting out there in the driveway. All them stupid doll clothes, they are folded neatly upon that old tea party table. I can see the back of Chessies head from here.

Chessies ears, they are coated with sunscreen.

June 25

We are piling into Charlies Mini Cooper. We are going to go eat hoagies. Then we are going to go rollerskating.

Charlie, he is going to teach us how to roller skate backwards without pitching over and busting our heads.

Chessie, she has refused to go.

Chessie, she is setting with her arms folded at that table full of doll clothes.

Anyways, Chessie hates rollerskating. As it puts her in mind of ball bearings.

June 29

Sunday morning.

Pia, she has all sorts of pliers spread across the kitchen table and Pia is making cat bracelets.

Snooples and me, we are washing and drying last night’s pizza pans. Snooples, she is singing I GOT WORMS YOU GOT WORMS ALL GOD’S CHILDRENS GOT WORMS.

Me, I can see the top of Chessies small stubborn head out there at the end of the driveway. All them folded doll clothes.

This makes me gloomy somehow.

I know. I shall go down to the driveway. I shall magnanimously purchase a pair of bloomers or something.

* * * * *

HOW MUCH FOR THIS HERE UM…

pinafore. $8,900.

I HAVE ARRIVED TO MAGNANIMOUSLY PURCHASE THIS HERE, UM, PINAFORE FOR 25 CENTS.

sticker says $8,900.

OKAY. FIFTY FIVE CENTS.

$8,900. firm.

FIFTY SEVEN CENTS. I AM AFRAID THAT WILL BE MY FINAL OFFER.

this ain’t no soethby’s.

Chessie, she snaps the pinafore away, folds it neatly, and slaps it back onto the table.

GODDAMNIT CHESSIE

Oh what absolutely darling little kitten panties!

A sleek gray automobile, it is purring alongside the road and a white-gloved lady wearing a coordinated beige outfit plus a hat which resembles a birds nest, she is is holding up them $7,800 frilly panties.

i ain’t giving no discounts. let’s get that clear.

Chessie, she thumps the table with her small furry white fist.

I simply have to have these for little Wiki-Poo.

That white-gloved lady, she is digging around in a purse the size of a pillow case. Soirée en Paris perfume, it is billowing everywheres.

Here is $10,000! You cute little itty bitty snoogum woogums.

Chessie, she grudgingly takes the clutch of $100 bills. Chessie, she counts them $100 bills twice. Chessie, she painstakingly prints a receipt in dark pencil. Chessie, she prints

ALL SALES FINAL!!

in big block letters across the top.

Another automobile, real slopy and red, it has pulled up behind that big gray one. Another automobile with huge black fenders, it has pulled up behind that one. Plus another automobile with a hood ornament which is a chrome leaping naked guy.

Ladies wearing birds nest hats and straw hats and little cotton visor hats, they are pawing through them doll clothes. They are holding up items and they are all dewey eyed. Them ladies, they are delightedly shrieking.

Chessie, she scowls and collects thick perfumey stacks of money.

June 30

It is 5 a.m.

Some kind of commotion is going on out in the back yard. All the dogs at the Gateway House for Homely Dogs, they are hysterically barking and they are bouncing upon their foots.

I shall pad down the hallway in my pajamas and I shall stand up on my toes with my paws upon this here window sill and I shall peer through the pitcher window in order to ascertain what the heck is going on.

Good gracious Chessie. She is out there standing in the back yard and she is wearing a hard hat. Chessie, she is directing the operations of a enormous crane.

That enormous crane, it is lowering a olympic size swimming pool into the back yard.