It all started when our hyphen-happy protagonist, jimmy, woke up in a secret vineyard. It was the second time it had happened. Feeling barely worried, jimmy stroked a live hand grenade, thinking it would make him feel better (but as usual, it did not). In a blinding moment of misguided bravado, he realized that his beloved penny was missing!  Immediately he called his favorite Mormon, garet. jimmy had known garet for (plus or minus) 61 years, the majority of which were curious ones.  garet was unique. He was ingenious though sometimes a little… insensitive. jimmy called him anyway, for the situation was urgent.

   garet picked up to a very happy jimmy. garet calmly assured him that most South American hissing sloths shudder before mating, yet man-eating capybaras usually earnestly cringe *after* mating. He had no idea what that meant; he was only concerned with distracting jimmy.  Why was garet trying to distract jimmy?  Because he had snuck out from jimmy’s with the penny only eight days prior.  It was a sassy little penny… how could he resist?

   It didn’t take long before jimmy got back to the subject at hand: his penny. garet yawned. Relunctantly, garet invited him over, assuring him they’d find the penny. jimmy grabbed his giraffe and disembarked immediately. After hanging up the phone, garet realized that he was in trouble. He had to find a place to hide the penny and he had to do it aggressively. He figured that if jimmy took the neighborhood-terrorizing crotch rocket, he had take at least ten minutes before jimmy would get there.  But if he took the unicycle?  Then garet would be abundantly screwed.

   Before he could come up with any reasonable ideas, garet was interrupted by five stupid dogs that were lured by his penny. garet grimaced; ‘Not again’, he thought. Feeling relieved, he recklessly reached for his carrot and skillfully stroked every last one of them. Apparently this was an adequate deterrent–the discouraged critters began to scurry back toward the lemur-infested moor, squealing with discontent. He exhaled with relief.  That’s when he heard the unicycle rolling up.  It was jimmy.

—-o0o—-

   As he pulled up, he felt a sense of urgency. He had had to make an unscheduled stop at Wal-Mart to pick up a 12-pack of live hand grenades, so he knew he was running late.  With a calculated leap, jimmy was out of the unicycle and went surreptitiously jaunting toward garet’s front door.  Meanwhile inside,  garet was panicking.  Not thinking, he tossed the penny into a box of wolverines and then slid the box behind his canoe. garet was stunned but at least the penny was concealed.  The doorbell rang.