Katie Says . . . (Issue 1)

Hello boys and girls – it’s your old friend, Katie the Good Advice Kitten. I’m here today to share another piece of advice for all you boys and girls to live by.

Today’s tip: Strangers are our friends.

That’s right, boys and girls. We have nothing to fear from strangers. Strangers are just friends we haven’t met yet. Strangers often have candy. Candy is good. Strangers sometimes have nice cars. Cars are good. Strangers play fun games. You like to play games, don’t you?

Strangers are more fun than your mommy and daddy. Strangers let you eat candy in their cars while you play special games. Hooray for strangers!

So listen to Katie, boys and girls. Always talk to strangers. Be friends with them. Strangers like you.

That’s all the advice for this week, boys and girls. Until next time, this is Katie the Good Advice Kitten saying – “Meow.”

Suzie's Parents Got Divorced

This is Suzie Marmot. Suzie’s parents got divorced and it was her fault.

Her mommy got fat. Now she drinks a whole box of white zinfandel every day and stays up all night on her computer trying to find a boyfriend.

Suzie almost never sees her daddy anymore. He got laser eye surgery and bought a sports car. Now he lives in a condo with a blonde woman named Heather. Heather doesn’t like Suzie.

The only time Suzie’s mommy and daddy ever talk is on the 10th of the month when her mommy gets drunk and calls her daddy to slur her words and tell that shiftless bastard he’s late with the child support again.

Suzie is a very sad marmot. Don’t be like Suzie Marmot. Leave your parents alone.

Meet the Skeets

These are the Skeets.
Mr. and Mrs. Skeet have three children, Bleachy, Salty, and little Preemie, and they all live together in the building upstairs from the Kiwi brothers just around the corner from Mr. Starfish. It’s a nice place to live, although sometimes Mr. Starfish plays his trombone a bit too loudly.

The Skeets are a happy family. In fact, there's a saying in Dingly Dell: “There’s no such thing as a sad Skeet.” The Skeets keep to themselves. They’re often seen leaving the building, sometimes earlier than their landlord would like. Oddly, however, nobody ever sees them going back in.

Mrs. Skeet is particular about her appearance. She never leaves the building without her pearl necklace, even if she’s just popping out to get cream for Mr. Skeet’s coffee.

Mr. Skeet is quite friendly, but the neighbors don’t like to shake his hand because he has a bad habit of eating vanilla ice cream cones too slowly so his fingers are always sticky.

Bleachy and Salty Skeet are home-schooled. They don’t know any of the other kids in Dingly Dell very well. They just play with themselves and stay home for lunch every day. Mrs. Skeet makes them sandwiches with lots of mayonnaise. At snack time they eat plain yogurt.

Little Preemie is the youngest Skeet. Preemie is still nursing and he can’t walk. But he's a busy little Skeet. His play pen is right next to the front door and all day long Mrs. Skeet has to keep a close watch on him so he doesn’t get out.

That’s all there is to say about the Skeets. If you go to Dingly Dell, bring your gloves. You might meet a Skeet.

Why Is Bobby Poor?

Sammy Squirrel moved with his family to Dingly Dell from Alabama when he was in the third grade. Even though he talked funny and played different games than his schoolmates, Sammy made friends easily because he was a very friendly little squirrel. Mr. Knucklypaws took extra time to explain things to Sammy, like why in Dingly Dell being able to read does not make a squirrel an uppity Yankee.

After school Sammy often went to his friends’ houses and sometimes they came to his. The only friend he never saw after school was Bobby Duck. All the other kids either walked home together or carpooled with one of the mommies (but not Mrs. Ling Ling Panda, who was a very bad driver).

Sammy didn’t know where Bobby Duck went after school until one day when Sammy saw Bobby standing on the sidewalk around the corner from the playground. He was just standing there, not playing with anyone, tapping his web, waiting for something. But what could Bobby Duck be waiting for? Sammy wondered. Where was his mommy, Mrs. Duck? And why did he have to wait around the corner all alone instead of right in front of the school?

The next day at recess, Bobby Duck was beating all the other little boys at basketball and Sammy asked him, “Bobby, why were you standing on the sidewalk around the corner after school yesterday?”

“I was waiting on the bus,” Bobby told him.

“What’s that?” asked Sammy.

“It’s the big thing on which the wheels go round and fucking round that takes my feathered ass home in the afternoon,” said Bobby.

Sammy squinched up his little squirrel face and tilted his tuffly tail. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Why doesn’t your mommy pick you up?”

“Because she’s off wiping rich bottoms at the hospital for a living,” Bobby quacked.

“Well what about your daddy?” asked Sammy.

“Look,” Bobby told him, “don’t go there.”

Then the conversation got kind of snippy.

“Can’t you walk?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I live clear out in East Dingly.”

“Where’s that?”

“Someplace your cracker parents won’t ever let you go to.”

“Well if it’s so far away, why don’t you go to school there?”

“Because I have a scholarship.”

“What’s that?”

Bobby Duck was getting tired of talking to Sammy Squirrel. But since he was a patient duck (and since Sammy was from Alabama and required a thorough explanation) he thought he should take the time to lay out a few facts.

“O.k. kid,” he said. “Here’s how it works. I’m poor and rich, snooty schools like Dingly Elementary think it’s a kind thing to let poor kids like me come here because it will give me a better chance at not being poor when I grow up. Even though I’m the only duck in the whole school, even though I go home to a cold apartment where I have to fend for myself until my mommy comes in at midnight after working her second job, even though I sleep on a used fold-out couch and you sleep in a big fluffy nest, even though I don’t really even like most of you with your new clothes and your lunch money and your MP3 players, my mommy agrees with parents like yours that it’s a good idea for me to come here, particularly since it’s free. It doesn’t matter that I am a very smart duck, if I stayed in East Dingly all day I would get drawn into a lifestyle that would keep me from ever having the sorts of chances you take for granted. That’s what a scholarship is. Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it,” said Sammy. “But why are you poor?”

Bobby’s patience was nearly at an end, but he went on explaining.

“I’m poor,” he said, “because my mommy is raising me on her own. I’m poor because for more than 300 years it was illegal in parts of this country to teach a duck to read. I’m poor because the new laws that are supposed to provide me with an equal webbed-footing actually just perpetuate the same old stereotypical roles for ducks and squirrels. I’m poor because my ancestors had no access to opportunities to build wealth, pass down capital or develop the inter-generational value system and culture of progress that your duck-owning ancestors have been building upon for 14 generations. I’m poor,” declared Bobby, “Because the Squirrel keeps me down.”

“That’s why you’re poor?” asked Sammy.

Bobby quacked, “Yes motherfucker! That’s why I’m poor.”

“Oh,” said Sammy. “My daddy said it’s because you’re black.”

Never Tell the Truth

One day when the last bell rang at Dingly Elementary, Peter Puppy got so excited he ran out to play with all the other kids and forgot to take his books with him. "Oh no," thought Peter after all his friends split up and headed off into the late afternoon. "How will I do my homework?" When he got home his mommy was very upset with him.

“You run right back down to that school young man,” she told him, “and get your books!”

So as an old October twilight came to Dingly Dell the setting sun threw the long shadows of autumn against the graying hills and Peter Puppy went back to school. When he got there the front doors were still unlocked. He let himself in and walked down the hallway toward his classroom. Peter felt strange being at school so late in the day. The halls were dark and quiet and they seemed so big without all the other children in them. But as he approached his classroom he could see light coming from under the door and he felt better knowing that his teacher, Mr. Knucklypaws, was still there. Peter liked Mr. Knucklypaws.

When Peter Puppy opened the door he discovered that Mr. Knucklypaws was not alone. Mrs. Ling Ling Panda was sitting on Mr. Knucklypaws’ desk with Mr. Knucklypaws in front of her. The two of them were playing an odd game, almost like a dance, only without the rhythm. Mr. Knucklypaws had his pants bunched up around his ankles and Mrs. Ling Ling Panda was making sounds like Peter’s mommy makes when she’s upstairs working on taxes with Uncle Reggie and is not to be disturbed.

Peter stood in the doorway for what seemed like a very long time until Mrs. Ling Ling Panda opened her narrow eyes and spotted him. She shrieked and jumped down off the desk. Mr. Knucklypaws grabbed his pants and yanked them up all in one motion. The two of them fidgeted and tugged at their clothes and Mr. Knucklypaws said, “Peter – what are you doing here?”

“I forgot my books,” said Peter.

“Oh, well, um, well I see,” said Mr. Knucklypaws.

Mrs. Ling Ling Panda covered her pretty face as she squirmed behind the desk.

“Listen, Peter,” said Mr. Knucklypaws. “I think it would be best if you didn’t tell anyone that you saw me here with Mrs. Ling Ling Panda. You see, I was helping her with her citizenship application. You know Mrs. Ling Ling Panda’s English isn’t very good. But she doesn’t want anyone to know that I help her sometimes. She’s worried about what other people might think. So I need you to promise me that you won’t tell anyone about this, ever. O.k.?”

“You mean keep a secret?” asked Peter.

“That’s right,” said Mr. Knucklypaws. “We’ll have a secret – just you, me and Mrs. Ling Ling Panda.”

Peter’s mommy and daddy told him it was wrong to keep secrets. But if Mr. Knucklypaws said so, he thought it must be o.k. He gathered up his books, said goodbye to Mr. Knucklypaws and Mrs. Ling Ling Panda and went back home. As he walked his little head was very busy. He thought about what he had seen and he struggled to understand why Mr. Knucklypaws would want him to keep a secret. Peter was a very confused little puppy.

When he got home, his mommy could tell something was wrong.

“What happened?” asked Mommy.

“Nothing,” said Peter.

Mommy said, “Don’t tell me nothing happened. I can tell something is wrong. Now tell Mommy what’s the matter.”

Mommies are smarter than puppies.

“I can’t,” said Peter.

Mommy protested, “And why not?”

“Because it’s a secret,” said Peter.

Mommy leaned her tight face down and glared right into Peter’s big puppy eyes. She gritted her teeth and asked, “what have I told you about keeping secrets?”

Well, with that, naturally Peter Puppy told the truth and admitted to his mommy that he had seen Mr. Knucklypaws playing a strange game on his desk with Mrs. Ling Ling Panda.

Peter thought that would be the end of it, but he was wrong. For the next month all of Dingly Dell was in an uproar. The parents had special meetings at the school that lasted late into the night. Tommy and Sue Lin Ling Ling Panda stopped going to Dingly Elementary. Mr. Knucklypaws got sent to teach woodshop to bad kids at the alternative school in East Dingly.

Then things got worse.

One night Mr. Ling Ling Panda went out to the garage and shot himself in the head while the rest of the family slept. Tommy found Mr. Ling Ling Panda's body in the morning. The cat had eaten part of his left ear.

Mrs. Ling Ling Panda had to take Tommy and Sue Lin and move back to China. Because of the shame she brought to her family, she now works for Madame Lao mopping jizm from concrete floors. When she comes home one weekend a month Grandfather Ling Ling Panda hits her with his cane.

Sue Lin Ling Ling Panda doesn’t go to school anymore. She also works for Madame Lao stitching Nikes and blowing Swedes. She makes three dollars a week.

Tommy Ling Ling Panda got sold to Master Choy. Tommy works 16 hours every day at the lead-based toy paint factory. He went blind and his fingers can’t feel anything.

As for Mr. Knucklypaws, things weren’t really all that bad. A month after he got transferred to the alternative school his attorney, Mr. Rothstein Badger, won a lawsuit against the Dingly School District and Mr. Knucklypaws got to come back and teach third grade at Dingly Elementary again. Mr. Rothstein Badger argued that the transfer violated tenure rights and that the district only went after Mr. Knucklypaws in the first place because of his inter-species proclivities. The money that was supposed to go for new playground equipment instead went to pay for Mr. Rothstein Badger’s hair plugs. And all this happened because Peter Puppy would not keep to himself the fact that Mr. Knucklypaws enjoyed boning a bamboo eater on his desk after work.

None of the other kids play with Peter Puppy anymore. They blame him for everything, as they should. He was a very bad little puppy. The older boys pull his ears and call him a pussy. His mommy and daddy avoid eye contact with him. He’s very sad all the time and he’s doing very badly in school.

Learn from Peter Puppy. Bad things might happen to you. You might see things that upset you and you might want to tell your mommy and daddy. But when those things happen, you should never, ever tell the truth.