Oh, for Pete's sake... how could this be any more perfect?

Imagine you're a casting agent (or whatever they're called. All I know
is that they have couches). The writer, in an effort to make his tired
storyline interesting, decides to include a cute and fuzzy little
animal. The writer doesn't care what kind of cute and fuzzy little
animal it is. As the casting agent, that's your problem.

Naturally, to make life challenging, the writer decides to make the
cute and fuzzy little animal a *dead* cute and fuzzy little animal.
Well, just great. There's a reason the word "animate" includes most of
the word "animal." The damn things move. But no, you have to find an
animal that's *inanimate* for this particular part. As a matter of
fact, you have to find an animal for this part that's so inanimate that
this animal appears dead. You think to yourself that it's too bad that
writers are not cute and fuzzy.

You rack your brain. How about a dog? They're cute and fuzzy, right?
And dogs are known to play dead, right? It's a classic dog trick. But
then you start thinking... how long can a dog play dead? Two minutes,
maybe? Then you start thinking of the number of takes the director is
going to need for the human stars of the show to get it right. Oh sure,
on the first take the dog will probably play dead perfectly. But you
think about how short a dog's attention span is, and you realize that
with each progressive take the dog is going to remain "dead" for
shorter and shorter periods of time, until by the twenty-first take the
dog no longer looks "dead," just wounded. No, this won't do at all.

You think about using a cat. Cats love to sleep like the dead. It's
hard to tell a cat from roadkill, sometimes. But there's only one
problem. You can't get a cat to do anything on cue. You can tell a cat
to "play dead," but the cat is only going to play dead when *it* feels
like playing dead. Cats never do what you want them to do when you want
them to do it, unless of course, you don't want them to - then they'll
do it all day. A cat can be starving, yet when you put a bowl of food
in front of their face they act like they could care less. You pick up
the bowl of food so the dog doesn't get it, and whattaya know... the
cat is now hungry and meows it's little butt off. So you put the bowl
of food back down and the cat just stares are you, wondering what
you're doing (much like a Hollywood starlet). You sigh, and then try to
come up with another animal to "play dead."

You go to your local pet store to get some ideas. A hamster, maybe? No,
all they do is run on those damn wheels all day. A parakeet? No, not
hardly - too noisy. Dead things don't make noise. You see all kinds of
other animals, like iguanas and tarantulas. The iguana is kinda cute,
but not very fuzzy, and while the tarantula is kinda fuzzy, it's not
very cute. You sigh loudly. It's then that you spot a ferret sleeping
in it's cage.

You don't know much about ferrets, so you try and wake the little guy
to see him in action. First you call out softly, "Hey, little guy." You
don't want to startle the little fellow. No response. You tap the bars
while continuing to call out to him. Nothing. You take a closer look at
the ferret. It's hard to tell if he's even breathing. You look for
signs of life - a twitch of the nose, a ruffle of fur, anything. Above
the cage is a TV which is showing a DVD of ferrets playing. They're
running around like mad, chasing each other, running in circles around
each other, and doing cute little backhops. You look back at the ferret
in the cage. This is the same animal? You look back at the TV, where
ferrets are now wrestling with each other, twisting like little
alligators. You look back at the ferret in the cage and wait for the
ferret to breathe, but you just can't see any signs of life. Is he
holding his breath? You're just about to go tell the store manager that
you think his pet ferret is dead when you spot the little guy move.

He yawns like he's Rip van Winkle, and starts to stretch. Slowly, he
wanders over to you and puts his nose through the bars to see who you
are. His eyes are still half-closed and his fur looks as if he went to
bed with his clothes on. He goes over to his food bowl and sniffs it,
disinterested, and goes to his water bottle and takes a few licks, then
curls up and goes back to bed.

What animal could be more perfect than this? You start to smile and
chuckle to yourself. Writers be damned, you think you have found your
cute and fuzzy little animal. Later on, while shooting the episode,
it takes the starlet twenty-two takes to get it right, but the ferret
sleeps the entire time, oblivious to everything going on around him.
You smile to yourself realizing that - yet again - you have foiled the
writer. Feeling contented and a bit sleepy yourself, you go get a cup
of coffee. Taking a sip, you smile again and nod your head... yes,
life is good. Very good.

Sam
35.199551 N ~ 106.644249 W

ps. No animals were hurt in the writing of this post.

[Posted in FML 5403]