Episode 1:13

---

Ethel the squirrel has stopped on a branch overlooking a small clearing in the woods. Meldwyn approaches and looks up at the squirrel as she puts the dangling ear buds in and fusses with the iPod. Though Ethel is in fact a little twisted, she is also a very astute observer of the humans with whom she shares the park. It doesn’t take her long to get the device functioning.

Ethel’s face betrays a series of emotions as she listens to snippets of song after song in quick succession. Most of the expressions are variations of disappointment or disgust. It seems she’s just not down with Meldwyn’s musical tastes. She begins gesticulating emphatically and chittering at maximum volume, unable to hear herself above the musical din pulsing in her ears. She sounds kinda like a headphoned Madonna wannabe singing on the bus. On Meth.

The odd thing is, Meldwyn kind of understands her. He’s had experience communicating with dozens of cab drivers recently arrived in the country, typically finding common ground with an improv kind of pidgin english. It's usually worked out reasonably well. Except of course, for the time when he was trying to visit his grandmother across town for meatloaf night, and was instead dropped on a corner in a sketchy neighborhood used as the primary business address of a rather large, and vaguely attractive, tranny hooker..... but Meldwyn really doesn’t like to talk about that.

Anyway, it turns out that the squirrel variety of pidgin english works pretty well. The hand gestures really help too, and from what Meldwyn is now gathering, Ethel pretty much hates his musical taste, preferring more of a country pop kind of thing. Despite the playlist, the furry little klepto also feels that she’s stolen his iPod fair and square and has no inclination of returning it.

Meldwyn also now understands that he’s made a mistake in naming the rodent after his aunt. It turns out that Ethel is actually a male named Karfka or something and isn’t too happy about the mix-up. The rodent launches into a largely incoherent diatribe about society’s assumptions regarding a creatures sexual identity based on how cute and cuddly they are. He snarls that just because his privates aren’t on display for the world to see like a 3 to 1 favorite at the Kentucky Derby it doesn’t mean he’s not a very masculine member of his species.

Whew. Meldwyn’s kind of taken aback. He feels badly that he’s hurt the little guy’s feelings and apologizes. Of course, he also feels bad that he doesn’t have Nuke LaLoosh rocket arm and can’t knock the little fucker out of the tree from thirty paces with a rock, collect his belongings and get back to work. Hmm. What to do?


Bonus Material!

Click here if you'd like to check out a few samples from Meldwyn’s ipod's shuffle rotation during a recent work session.

---