A Stretch of the Imagination

“Excuse me. I want to talk to the person in charge of the zoo,” said Bobby McPherson. He was always causing trouble, challenging the establishment.

Sue was nervous. She was well aware of the confrontational nature of Bobby. As zoo curator, she had to reply, “That would be me.”

Bobby put his hands on his hips. Sure, Sue was a looker but this “zoo” issue was simply too big to ignore. He chose his words carefully, wanting to make his point, but not wanting to alienate Sue.

“The exhibits are all crappy,” he stated choosing as neutral a tone as possible so as to not offend.

“How dare you call my zoo crappy!” She snapped. "I worked very hard to make this is as good a zoo as possible. You should be thanking me. By the way, if you don’t like it, you can just leave!”

Bobby was confused as to how his calm declaration could have elicited such a strong response. He tried to recover by being helpful.

“It’s just that some of the exhibits are not really animals. For example, over there in that box is a stuffed bear. You have it labeled as a Northern California Grizzly.”

“You just have to use your imagination,” Sue countered. “Where would I find a real grizzly bear?”

“Okay then, how about that cage over there you claim to have a panda bear and it is clearly a baby with black spots marked onto its diaper.”

“That’s my baby sister Kelly. She is much more panda-like when she is not sleeping.”

Bobby looked around at the stuffed sock labeled “snake”, at the sleeping dog labeled “werewolf” and finally at Sue’s mom sleeping on the couch with a sign that said “Sasquatch.”

Turning to Sue he said, “I want my money back.”

Word count 300