I'm glad you all seemed to enjoy this little tiny story within a story. I probably wouldn't have written this at all if it hadn't been for the challenge Wendy made of me to write a response to Tank's beautiful, WAFFy epilogue with something that blows up.
Another reason I wrote up this "epilogue" was because I had a crazy idea for a bit of satire taken from outrageous events occurring in real life. Sadly, this kind of thing does happen in real life. Everyone knows the occasional news story of a person's livelihood destroyed because of a single kangaroorat taking up residence on their property. And on wetlands, one Congressman even complained that wetland regulations had been defined so loosely that a "dog could urinate in your back yard, and the government could declare it to be a federally protected wetland." And it did happen to many in the mid-west after some flooding a couple years back.
After reading a few stories of lives destroyed due to this type of over-regulation, the idea for this story sprang into being.
I also didn't foresee this becoming a series of responses. But that's half the fun, isn't it?
Tank wrote:
Tank (who wonders what he ever did to Roger?)
Nothing, actually. But what's a Tank story without a few WHAMs? Things had been going far too swimmingly, with nothing but sickly, sweet yucky stuff. So I gave Tank what he's always asking for.
Wasn't this a great birthday present? BTW, my birthday was only a few days before yours, so I indulged myself.
KathyB wrote:
Roger, this was hysterical! I started grinning when the government guys showed up, and laughed when I began to suspect Clark's involvement, but at this line ...
quote:
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"Salmon!" protested Tank. "It's a koi pond. How can there possibly be salmon in it?"
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I lost it completely ... ROTFL!
The funny thing is that this line wasn't even in the original story when it was posted. This occurred to me several minutes after posting this story and was edited in. Glad you enjoyed the line!
KathyB also wrote:
Kathy (who thinks 'Tank and Roger challenges' has a very nice ring to it . )
Eep! I'm flattered you think so, but I have a long ways to go before my name should be mentioned in the same paragraph as Tank's, or Wendy's either. I bow before the masters.
Thanks to all who read this "epilogue". Thanks to KathyM, Tricia, Karen, Jose, Pam, Wendy, Tank, Hazel, KathyB, and Merry for their comments.
Thanks to Yvonne for BR'ing this just minutes before I posted this story.
And a special thanks to Wendy for giving me permission and even encouraging me to write this response.
