Consider This

By LC Van Savage

Have you ever thought what fun it might be to be Mother Nature (OK, I’ll be more PC here—Person Nature) for just a little while? Just think what you could do! You could stop hurricanes in their tracks, or maybe heave them at people you were annoyed at, you could make Dutch Elm disease disappear, you could fix it so lady cats only gave birth once every three years and then only had one kitten, you could get that avocado pit to downsize, you could make it rain only at night, make snow melt by dawn, and best of all, when you got bored, for fun you could combine animals. Just for a day or so. No sense upsetting the universal apple cart. Species cart.

Just think about it. With a wave of your hand you could combine an armadillo with a goose making it a lot less vulnerable to buckshot every fall. Maybe a cow with a shrimp. Bingo! Surf and turf. How about combining a horse with an insect; could be a horse and buggy, right? Or a llama with French poodle; a lamoodle. Or how about a chicken with an ant; Chicken Little. How about an elephant combined with a condor; a gigantic, bald-headed flying monster with bad skin and a really long beak.

Oh, let’s see now. I can do better than that. Indulge me here, OK? The brain is taking off. (Don’t take that literally.) A turtle with a squirrel? Squirtle. Duck and flea? Fluck. Snake and fish? Snish. Worm and slug? Slurm. This is fun. Elk and swan? Swelk. Tapir and worm = oh, you can figure that one out. Inchworm and female dog = binch. Yak and coyote = coyak. Blowfish and hardshell crab = blowhard. Shrimp and butterfly? You know. Alligator and elephant = elephator. Gnat, tsetse fly and crocodile = gnatsecroc. Kangaroo and cow = kangamoo. Fruitfly and bean bug = tootyfruity. Dung beetle and Krul bird = Dungbekrul. Camel and cow = camelactos. Kookaburra, llama, francolin, ant, olindias = kooklafranantoli. I think I’m getting the hang of this! Haymite and ewe = hayewe. Bug, elk and leech = belch. Dragon and donkey = guess! Robin, mealybug, mole = robinmeblind. Ferret and rat = ferrat. One okapi, one doe and two kiwi birds = Okidoki. Ostrich, sailfish, canary, uakari, seahawk – Osaicanusea. I can’t stop! African elephant, deesapod, Kodiak bear = afrideesiak. Iguana and antelope = uanaelope? Tasmanian Devil and Dylan = our grandson. Chihuahua, newt, bird and snake = shakenbake. Caribou, obelia and kea = carioke. Tiger, wanderbug, and onager = tiwanon. Eyra, lovebird and unau = Iloveu. Discus fish, isoptera, gecko, tinamou, crayfish, zebra = disisgetincrayze. I’m outta control here, folks. I’d better stop before I go completely round the bend.

I’d only want to combine animals for a day. I mean it would be very upsetting to their young, for example, if the parent animal suddenly appeared at the sanctum as part or parts of other creatures. It could ruin their day. I mean parents of any species, especially ours, can be very weird all by themselves without any outside help at all, so for them to be sectioned into some other beings might just make the little nestlings or denlings or lairlings or whatever grow up with a skewed perception of the world. You know, like we have.

Perhaps after I was Person Nature for a day, I’d concentrate on being Father, I mean Person Time for a day. Now that would be great fun, being in control of time. I could move days forward, backward or make them stand still. I could keep everyone young or make them suddenly very old. Imagine how amusing it would be to see a youngster making fun of an oldster and then poof! Making them switch ages. That’d fix that youngster once and for all. He’d be a lot more sensitive to the world’s senior citizens from then on, I’ll bet. Only problem would be getting that oldster turned youngster to agree to going back to being an oldster again.

And then, once done with being Person Time, I’d maybe like to try being God or Goddess for just a day. Boy oh boy, would I make some changes. First of all, I’d get rid of all those annoying illnesses we keep having to get. Everyone would be totally healthy. Well, except for the bad guys. I’d make sure all the world’s diseases would land on them. I’d pretty much make sure Rap music vanished, and as to Brussels sprouts, there’s no way they’d ever sprout anywhere. I’d get rid of calories and up the milk chocolate production in every single country. There are a great many more world improvements I’d make while being Mr. or Ms. God, but l’ll save that list for another column.

And then just before I went back to being me, LC, I’d get into my Person Nature role just one more time for just a minute, so I could combine one more bunch of animals for an hour or so. And, this animal combo would convey my wish for you; beaver, haddock and peafowl = behapea.