Halloween

We’re going tomorrow to help with the local Halloween effort – the creation of a haunted house at the old community hall.

We all have different jobs.

Mine, of course, is to supervise. It’s very important to have proper supervision over a task so large, and believe you me, I will crack the whip.

Snerkie and the rest of the smaller critters will don costumes and pretend to be rats and mice, running all over the floor, scaring all the little children half out of their wits.

Murray will lead a band of critters in carrying knives around – like slashers – and jumping out at the children as they pass by. Don’t worry, they are plastic knives – enough to convince a little one for a moment, but no one else.

Charlene the cute chick has put together a bowl of wet, squidgy stuff like hamburger and noodles and spaghetti, for the kids to put their hands in while blindfolded – that always scares the heck out of them.

Graham and Eugene will be in charge of music and eerie sounds – the better to set the mood.

Barry and Benji Bear will work the smoke machine in the cemetery – to welcome the victi – Er – visitors to the Haunted Mansion.

One of the Poops brothers came to me the other day while we were planning all this and said “I wish it could be Halloween all year round – it’s just so much fun!”

Sidney

Preparing the crowd for Halloween.

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Snow

Well, he tried it again, but again we put him in his place. The very idea! Ridiculous!! How can we possibly pick up a snow shovel and push it so that it does what it was designed to do? In the first place, we’re not tall enough, and in the second place it’s just too heavy for us – and that’s before it’s got snow on it!

It’s snowing tonight – that’s why the matter even came up. Every year he ‘floats the idea’, and every year we shoot it down. Of course, I fully understand: he’s back in school, he hasn’t got time to do it himself, he needs help. But what on earth can we do?

No, I think we’ll have to stick to having society meetings and discussing the antics of the puppy, Rusty. Little fella was quite a handful at first, but I soon put him in his place!

Seems to be quite a lot of that going on, huh?

Sidney

Treats

Snerk here. This was on one of our summer road trips this year. I remember it well, except for where we went and when, and how long it took. I do remember getting hungry at one point when the Prez was doing the spotting and turning around and asking UJ if he had anything to eat.

Rather than answer, he whipped out his camera and snapped a shot of me and my brother, Snick.

We never did get anything to eat! Hey, where does a guy go to file a complaint?

Change

Sometimes things change. We know that, and we accept it, which is good because things around here certainly have changed. Even just a few months ago we were the top dog around here. We got all the attention, we got all the love, we got all the conversation.

But now? Now, it’s all down to the dog. The real one, I mean. We sort of expected it when he was a puppy – I mean, what kid anywhere doesn’t steal the room when he’s around? But we figured that when he started to grow up a bit we might get some of the limelight back.

Not so, I’m afraid. Why, last week alone, UJ forgot – forgot – to take us to bed, twice! That’s a little worrying. I mean, we’ve worked hard over the past few years to keep everyone happy, so to just be forgotten!? It felt pretty bad.

Still, we’re a resilient bunch, and we’re quite comfortable with our role, no matter what that is. So if the pup being here means that our role changes a bit, well, we’re okay with that. All we need to survive is love, and some occasional involvement.

Rusty’s a good boy, generally speaking, but I will say one thing: I’m sure glad I swatted him on the nose when he was a real little pup. Doing that then taught him to respect us now in a way that UJ’s admonitions never could. Now that he’s older, apart from the occasional friendly nibble, he pretty much leaves us alone.

Don’t worry, we’re still going strong. If our role here changes we’re okay with it. Let’s face it, if we have to spend less time looking after the folks here, we can take more time to build our society’s infrastructure – to make ourselves even stronger in defence of critters everywhere.

Sidney

Snerkie says hi