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January 25, 2003 gack popped the baby loose I was sipping Bengal Spice tea and nibbling King Cake when I heard what sounded like a clumsy daytime burglar in my garage.  I lowered the volume on Gershwin and walked out the front door, tea in one hand, cake in the other.  There, in the garage, I spied my postman, Mr. McFeeley, attempting to stuff an Esquire magazine into the gas tank of my auto.  His dog, Magoo, looked bored and seemed to consider whether this was, in fact, an opportune time for some choice ball-licking.  He decided it was. Mr. McFeeley is legally blind, but the U.S. Postal Service has accommodated his handicap under the Americans With Disabilities Act.  McFeeley is equipped with a seeing-eye German Shepherd and a driver.  Beyond that, he's on his own. Mr. McFeeley mistook my car for a house and my gas tank for a mailbox.  Magoo was hitting his intended target.  As I called McFeeley's name through a mouthful of King Cake, I choked.  I had swallowed something hard and it lodged in my throat.  Even as I turned asphyxia-purple, I realized how festive I must look and how the lovely hue was wasted on the blind postman and his color-blind dog. It didn't help much when McFeeley, hearing the strangling sound, walked over and performed a perfect Heimlich maneuver on my yard gnome.  But in that twilight moment immediately preceding death by oxygen deprivation, Magoo stopped licking his own balls and licked mine.  It startled me and the resulting GACK popped the baby loose.  The flesh-colored figurine fell at my feet and air rushed into my lungs.  As Magoo sniffed the slimy baby and McFeeley squeezed the cement yard gnome, I understood everything I cared to understand.

©  2003 by the beastmaster