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Australian Tales (part III) By: Richard Davidson on 10/21/2001; 6:29 PM It was Angela DuBois, but Alphonz quickly realized that she was no woman, but a seagoing ocelot disguised as a woman, because she had lost her shoe. Alphonz furiously began typing in Sanscrit, using the miniature keyboard he had surgically implanted in his wrist. He was awaiting a message from his lobster, but none came. Alphonz loved that lobster like a brother. He had always been a good and faithful companion to Alphonz; so much so, that Alphonz had once considered naming him. And now he could be lost, or injured, or worse, and Alphonz was running frantically up and down the deckway, as he often did when panic set in. "Damn animal instincts," the more logical side of Alphonz's tiny brain echoed repeatedly, but that's all it could say, until he smashed his head into that railing. He sat belatedly on the iron deck, wishing he'd made an appointment. He shook his head a few times, and raced back to his suite, hoping for the best. Much to his suprise, there was a party going on in the hallway outside his room, and a large amount of the people there were actually animals in disguise. Some were so remarkable, Alphonz couldn't tell visually, his acute sense of smell picking out the imposters, but the giraffe wasn't fooling anybody. As he pushed his way through the sniffling crowd, he realized the party was actually spilling into the hallway FROM his room, making him wonder if particle physics really is going to revolutionize childbirth, as he had read in Esquire last month. But the main thing on his mind was his lobster, who he couldn't see anywhere! He tried asking a Congressman, who was actually a very sick manatee, but all he got were sickly whistling sounds, and an occasional grunt. Luckily, Regis Philbin was there, and Alphonz decided he would concentrate all his efforts there. He started with idle chatter about being better off without Kathie Lee, but Regis was sick of the topic, and started to wander away. Alphonz decided to be more direct, and asked, "have you seen my lobster?" Regis stopped, and stared. He motioned Alphonz over towards the bar, and said very discreetly, "you've noticed the animals, then." "Yes, I have." replied Alphonz, trying not to make any wombat noises. "What do you think they want?" asked Regis, growing more and more concerned. "Regis, can I trust you?" asked Alphonz, doing his best to ignore the yummy fly just in front of his face. "If you can't trust me, who CAN you trust?" winked Regis, polishing off his wine without drooling, a feat Alphonz could never match. "Regis, there's some very bad animals here tonight, and if we don't find my lobster, we may be in some very serious trouble." Alphonz started licking his fur, and then thought better of it. Regis was very confused. He didn't see how the French Ambassador's lobster could do anybody any good, and he wondered where the French accent had gone. He was becoming suspicious, but that giraffe had really spooked him, and he decided to help look for the lobster. "Be discreet, man, no whistling or clucking," Alphonz intoned with fairly decent rythmn. He heard a commotion further down the hall, and tried to ooze his way through the various quadrapeds that were disguised as merchant marines. They were drunk, and every time he said "excuse me," they just pushed closer together, making his head split like an orange. The pain was riveting, and Alphonz was becoming sick and desperate all at the same time, as he came to realize the room was filling with sheep. They were evil sheep, alright, and everyone knows the evil sheep is the wombat's natural enemy. Alphonz's porcupine suit had the ability to throw poisonous quills, but the button was stuck again, and the evil sheep were surrounding him, keeping their eyes on those quills. Some badgers were pushing the sheep aside, making room for Angela DuBois, eccentric, rich, sea going ocelot. "Mr French Ambassador," she trumpeted, in perfect 4/4, "are you prepared to die?" Alphonz couldn't believe she actually bought his disguise, now that he had the porcupine suit on, but ocelots are not nearly as intelligent as people keep giving them credit for. Had Alphonz's lobster been there, he would have told you so with a sly wink. What could this strange simian have against the French Ambassador? Alphonz didn't know, but then he thought of Foie Gras. Foie Gras is a French dish that makes most animals blood run cold. The French take these ducks, and they force feed them until they get sick, and their livers get all enlarged, which is quite unpleasant for the duck. Then, when the poor bird is so sick that he can't understand sign language, they kill him, and serve his liver in a fancy restaurant, where they charge $200, and give you really rude service. And hadn't Angela once been in love with a handsome duck from Bitburg? Alphonz was almost sure he had read something in the Marsupial Weekly about it. Oh, this was bad allright, bad enough to cause several of the possums to go into hibernation, right on the dressing table. Alphonz was sure his time was up, and he began the strenous process of eating all the chocolate. "Mr. Ambassador, you lousy scum, or whatever your name is, I'm here to fill the world with loneliness. Wait, that's not it, I'm here to kill you." She seemed very satisfied for having maintained her train of thought. Alphonz almost choked on an almond. Dean and Bob were two rare Arctic Timberwolves, dressed in Italian suits, and leather trenchcoats. They advanced on Alphonz, spitting angry pronouns with the dexterity of Muhammad Ali. It was a tough spot. (to be continued)
RE: Australian Tales (part III) By: Dorothy Marie on 5/6/2001; 4:38 PM Okay, Richard. NOW I am properly replying to this story. I found it refreshingly creative, and eagerly await the rest of the story!
RE: Australian Tales (part III) By: Dorothy Marie on 5/6/2001; 4:45 PM And, are there Parts I and II somewhere? If there are, could you tell me where, because I cannot find them.
RE: Australian Tales (part III) By: Evan on 5/7/2001; 9:42 AM I like this but I think the foie gras is actually made from geese. Here is the dictionary.com entry for foie gras. foie gras n : a pate made from goose liver (marinated in cognac) and truffles [syn: pate de foie gras] Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University
RE: Australian Tales (part III) By: Richard Davidson on 6/24/2001; 4:58 PM Evan, I hate to argue with you, or the World Dictionary, especially over a month later, but I worked in a fancy French restaurant for a couple of years, and the world renowned chef there gave me my information about Foie Gras. If he was wrong, there is indeed something wrong with this world, as he would have been the first to tell you just how knowledgeable he was. If anyone has any insight into this matter, please don't hesitate to impress us all with your anal retentive attention to food resplendancy. As for me, it doesn't matter; Foie Gras is NASTY! I'd rather eat corn on the cob drenched in butter, as would most sane Americans. I'm not so sure about the English, as they are known to pride themselves on eating bland, unimaginative food, and those French, well, they're just plain wacky, although they do share my disdain for George W. Bush.
RE: Australian Tales (part III) By: Richard Davidson on 6/24/2001; 5:00 PM And, are there Parts I and II somewhere? If there are, could you tell me where, because I cannot find them. Yes, Dorothy, there is a Santa Claus. If you go to authors, and click on me, (try not to tickle,) you will see that Parts I and II can now be accessed. Due to the fact that I can now find my own story, I will soon be writing Parts IV and V, or how ever many parts it takes to wrap this insipid story up. In the meantime, please notice I have written Chapter II of my untitled horror story, which isn't nearly as funny as it should be. (OK, it's really not funny at all.)
RE: Australian Tales (part III) By: Brian Carnell on 6/24/2001; 5:44 PM At 05:13 PM 6/24/2001, Richard Davidson wrote: >Evan, I hate to argue with you, or the World Dictionary, especially over a >month later, but I worked in a fancy French restaurant for a couple of >years, and the world renowned chef there gave me my information about Foie Gras Well, everyone is right (sort of here). Foie gras has a fascinating history. It is actually believed to be the oldest cooked dish, with the Egyptians creating the technique some 5,000 years or so ago after they managed to domesticate geese. But it didn't take long for people in the Mediterannean to realize that you could do the same thing with ducks (the Greeks were forcefeeding ducks large amounts of grains as early as 3500 years ago, give or take a couple centuries). Plus variations on the theme were apparently independently discovered by China where ducks and geese were also forcefed grain to produce a liver delicacy. Still, the goose is generally the primary animal used (though chickens can also be used). Like Richard, I find the taste disgusting, but anyone interested in more info. should check out Michael Grinor's excellent book on the subject (with recipes), "Foie Gras: A Passion."
RE: Australian Tales (part III) By: Mark Morgan on 6/24/2001; 8:11 PM Two things about what's going on with this work: First, I am diligently rewriting the site's templates to make them more compact. Soon all multipart works will have working pagination. But I used to do that by spawning new templates all the time. Now I'm trying to do it using Conversant's way-cool new conditional macros. Please, stand by. But when I'm done there will be navigation on this piece, and Richard's novel, and any other multipart story. Honest. Second, I note with some horror that the talkback links have disappeared from this piece! I'll try to restore them. It's a bug related to the template rewrite.
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