It was one of those hot, humid days as we were traveling towards the east coast. Hot Breath was driving me absolutely nuts with some of the noise he was coming up with. He was bored out of his scales and so he figured he’d just bother me to no end. Well….he was doing exactly that. He had discovered that if he stuck his tongue to the roof of his mouth then popped it down real quick it made a clicking sound. A very loud clicking sound. This pleased him to no end. Click, click, click, click, click and so on. Just how am I going to shut this guy up? We stopped earlier so he could get out and fly some but he wasn’t really interested in that either. He was just bored. To bad there wasn’t some water around, he’d love a good frolic in the wet stuff.

So on it goes, click, click, click. He never gets tired of doing that. I’ve got to do something here before I have to get away for a little bit… Ok, here comes a road sign telling me there’s a town coming up about fifteen miles down the road. I’ll pull in there and find a grocery store. I’ve got an idea about how to stop this but we’ll have to see how it goes. One thing I’ve found out during the time H.B. has been with me, he definitely has a sweet fang. I don’t give him much in the way of sweets as it tends to give him the runs. Now I don’t have to explain that, just use your imagination.

This is a very small town. Hopefully they have a grocery store of some sort. There it is, I’ll just run in real quick and grab a few things. Ok, I’m back and H.B. has his nose stuck right down in the bag. At least he’s keeping quiet for the time being. I purchased the largest jars of Peanut Butter and Honey I could find. This should do the trick very nicely.

I took down one of my larger bowls and tried to find something to mix this with. I opened both jars and just used my fingers. Dug out the biggest gob of peanut butter I could get and placed this in the bowl. A gob about the size of a baseball. Now that’s a lot of peanut butter. Then I poured in an equal amount of honey. Let’s see, how am I going to mix this? Ok, with my hand, the same one I used to dig out the peanut butter. I’m mixing this all up and H.B. is trying to figure out what is going on here. I took just a little bit and stuck it in his mouth so he could get a taste. Sticking anything in his mouth, one has to be very careful. This dragons mouth is lined with very sharp teeth. You could do yourself an injury if your not careful. Little does he know what this is all about. He loves the taste and wants more. So far so good. Ok, that’s exactly what I had in mind. I grabbed a hand full and stuck my hand in his mouth almost to my elbow. You should see his face as I’m doing this. He’s basically gone cross eyed as he’s looking down my arm. His ears have tightened right down again his head. He does this when he’s not sure as to what’s going on. He’s got his mouth cinched down around my arm and he won’t let me go. He wants to know what I’m doing in his mouth? Finally he loosens his grip on my arm and I’m able to do what I need to do. I took the gob of peanut butter and honey and pressed it to the roof of his mouth. I thought, ‘uh huh, that should keep him busy for awhile’. Now you need to know what a dragons tongue is made up of. It’s kind of a cross between a cats tongue and something aquatic. One thing for sure, a dragons tongue is very long. When he sticks it out it must be at least eighteen inches long, just with the size he is in the truck. When he’s full sized you could probably measure it in feet. This gob in his mouth is effectively going to shut all his noise down until he gets it all lapped up or at least it should do. Also, it should take him sometime to get this sticky stuff cleaned away from the roof of his mouth. That was the whole idea of doing this in the first place. After pressing the gob to the roof of his mouth I pulled my arm out. I had peanut butter and honey mixture all over the hand, fingers and part way up my arm. His tongue followed my arm out and he licked my hand and arm clean, almost clean, in a very short time. Now he’s working on this stuff in his mouth.

Oh no, I’ve created a monster. I thought this would quiet him down. What it’s done is create another noise that’s even louder than the original noise that was bothering me so much. This guy has really got his tongue in motion now. It’s literally flying everywhere. All at once I hear a thunk and then everything stops. I’ve been watching his do this with his wild tongue. His tongue is stuck to the middle of his fore head right between his eyes and he can’t get it back in his mouth. His tongue is covered with peanut butter and honey and he’s basically glued it to his head. Try as he might he can’t get his tongue loose. I’m laughing so hard it’s starting to hurt. This has got to be the funniest sight I’ve seen in ages. Now he’s looking at me with pleading eyes. He wants me to help him. Ok, I reach over with two fingers and pluck his tongue from his fore head. It’s sort of like trying to removed duct tape. His tongue finally comes loose and back in his mouth it flies. He’s still got along way to go to get this mess cleaned up. As he’s working on this he’s moving around. He walks over to side of the bunk where I’m sitting and turns real quick. His tongue, covered with the sticky stuff, flies out and slaps me right the side of my left cheek. Oh good, now I’ve got this stuff all over me. What’s more, he can’t get his tongue back. This is a sight only your imagination can conjure up. Here we are, sitting on the bunk, to my right is a small dragon about two and half feet tall with his tongue stuck to the side of my face. I started laughing again and he was getting upset because he couldn’t get his tongue back. So I took two fingers and pried his tongue loose from my cheek. His tongue flew back in his mouth and he moved away. It took him several minutes to get rid of the peanut butter and honey mixture. Now the little guy is totally pooped. He just flopped over on his back and he’s going to sleep. His tongue is hanging out the side of his mouth laying on the bed. It’s pulsating like it has it’s own heart beat. The poor thing is totally worn out and his tongue is throbbing like crazy.

So, in effect, I did take care of the problem. I created another problem but in his attempt to solve the problem he wore himself out. So now he’ll sleep for a few hours. Ah yes, piece and quiet at last. But, now it’s going to take me awhile just to get cleaned up. I have peanut butter and honey mixture on my hand, fingers and up my arm and on the side of my head. So…….now I know how to solve his noise problem, even if it take awhile to do so………