If you've read this short book, thank you. You're one of few. If you haven't, please stop reading this and order a copy on Amazon. I wrote the story at the request of my dear friend Peter Bugee's daughters. Or maybe
it was my friend Peter Bugbee's dear daughters. One of the two. It all began one dark and lonely night (not really lonely, we were actually
having dinner at the Bugbee's house, but it was dark). Peter has this longstanding and tired joke involving typewriters that I've never
gotten the point of. It may have something to do with insecurity and the hipster lifestyle without a beard, but I'm not sure. Maybe it just invokes
the inner Agatha Christie or something. Anyway, he brings out one of his multiple typewriter contraptions and sets it in front of me, then gives
me the Peter look and I'm afraid he's going to hold my hands and start typing with them, so I take the less painful path and start typing myself.
This is how it started...
Peter the Rodent
There once was a rodent named Peter. Why did a rodent have a name, you might be asking? Well, because this was a very special rodent. He was a pet rodent that had been saved from a sewer pipe when he was just a furless fragile thing by a boy named Willie. Willie wasn't much different than most boys and girls you might know. He liked to run and jump and climb trees and eat his boogers when he thought no one was looking. And Willie's mom wasn't much different than most moms you probably know, which means she didn't like rodents, and especially not in her house. As you can already see, this was a problem. Willie couldn't just abandon Peter to be cat food or a snack for a hawk. On the other hand, well, Willie also had a dad who kept a wooden spoon that wasn't for stirring soup if you know what I mean.
That wasn't exactly how it went, but I don't have the original. The girls thought it hilariously funny that I'd turned their dad into a rodent, so of course I came home and finished the story, and because who doesn't love a gracious audience I asked them what the next story should be about and they said their dogs - Anabel and Elwyn. That's how The Fall of Lotor came about. There's a nod to the original story in the book. If you're interested in reading Peter the Rodent in it's entirety (it's only a few pages) you can download it here.
A Real Life Lotor
A few mornings ago I was sitting in my chair reading and I saw movement outside. At first I thought it was a cat, but the striped tail gave it away. Sure enough, a real life Lotor was looking in my window. I felt exposed. We told our neighbor (Amy) about it and she had a live trap that she let us borrow. We set it up with peanut butter and wheat thins and the next morning the trap wasn't empty. The poor little guy was shivering and looked scared stiff. I thought I'd take him up to the mountains and let him go but when I made a move to pick up the cage he turned into a demon. I doubted the strength of the cage. Rather than me letting Legion back into the wild, Amy asked the city who's in charge of picking up demon possessed animals, and within a few minutes a police officer showed up at my house. He was very friendly and asked if I was okay with him dispatching it in the backyard. I felt bad, but...yeah. We've had more than a few chickens slaughtered so I said, "of course." He went to his truck and returned with a 9mm with a silencer, some thick latex gloves, and a black trash bag. I stayed on the driveway while he sent Lotor back to the earth from whence he came. I gave him a copy of The Fall of Lotor on his way out. He seemed stoked. Anyway, here's the cute little guy.