Once upon a time, there were three bears, a Mama bear, a Papa bear, and a Baby bear. One day, Mama bear made porridge for supper, and the family went out for a walk in the woods while the porridge cooled.
While they were away, a lost autoduellist, wandering alone in the woods, happened upon the bears' cottage. He knocked on the door, but no one answered, so he kicked the door open and let himself in, whereupon he spied the three bowls of porridge.
He took a taste of the first bowl and said, "Yeech! This stuff is awful. But it beats eating algae and synthetic meat patties. But this bowl is too hot."
He then took a taste from the second bowl. "Bleah! This one's already room temperature. It must have been sitting here all day."
He then tried the third bowl and scarfed it down without a second thought.
"Boy, I'm beat. Let me go upstairs and catch 40 winks." And so the autoduellist went to the bedroom where he found three beds. The first was harder than his car roof, which he'd found himself sleeping on a few times. The second was too soft. The third one was so perfect that he fell asleep as soon as he sat down upon the mattress.
When a strange snoring noise echoed through the woods causing all of the little creatures to scurry away to shelter, the bears returned home for safety. First, they discovered that someone had been eating their food and made a mess of the tablecloth. Next, they climbed the stairs and discovered the source of the snoring.
"Someone's been sleeping in my bed!" cried Baby bear. "And there he is still sleeping in my bed!"
Papa bear let out a roar that woke up the autoduellist who saw that the occupants had returned home.
"Bear meat!" the salivating autoduellist yelled as he grabbed his trusty double-barrelled gyroslugger and quickly dispatched the furry creatures.
The autoduellist called all of his friends and charged them $20 a piece for their first real-meat dinner in a real long time and made lots of money.
And he live happily ever after.
-- C. J. Burke
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