This story is cute. It might remind you of some incidents with animals in your childhood or with your kids.
When they were kids, I would take my three daughters and their friends to the creek bordering our farm and let them shoot floating shaving cream cans with a small caliber rifle. In time, they became expert markswomen.
I’d position them on the bridge’s downstream side with the rifle at ready, and toss a can on the upstream side. When it passed under the bridge, they’d begin their fusillade. The mortally wounded cans skittered wildly across the surface, propelled by the release of their contents. The girls kept score for initial hits and the more difficult killing shots when the cans were farther downstream.
One cold afternoon, when the can killers were indulging in this diversion, the creek was near flood stage following heavy rains. As always, I threw a can upstream … but instead of shots, I heard the whole passel of shootists howling.
“There’s a cat down there!” they caterwauled in unison. Leaning over the railing, I saw the cause of their distress. A soaked, shivering kitten was clinging to a bridge piling. Leaving without rescuing the cat was not an option.
Our parents believed a halo adorned my brother Brad’s head, and horns protruded from mine. No story had two sides: I was always wrong … which was the case when we fought the Mexican standoff.
For his birthday, Mama gave Brad a pirate outfit, complete with feather-festooned hat, Jolly Roger eye patch, and a long, curving scimitar. Brad jabbed and slashed at me until I could take no more.
“If I had a sword, I’d slice you to slivers,” I said.
“Ho-ho-ho,” he roared lustily, parroting a pirate. “A duel it is ya want, shrimp,” and tossing me a candy doubloon, sneered, “Buy yourself a sword, laddybuck, and prepare to meet the Grim Reaper.”
