Purity

I hurt my keeper’s feelings last night. He hasn’t spoken to me all morning.

It was like this.

We got into an argument, Big Dope and I, over some obscure point in movie lore, something about who was the greatest western movie sidekick, Smiley Burnett or Gabby Hayes.

Anyhow, he told me that I lacked a cultural perspective, being an alien and all.

That made me mad. I puffed up my chest, I was shaped as Mae West. I always shape as Mae West on “Movie-lore Night.” It gives me a couple of advantages. I pointed them right at him and told him he lacked purity.

“Purity?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of purity?”

“The kind of purity that political party demands. You know … purity. Perfection. Cultural immaculacy. An unblemished past.”

“Me? I don’t have blemishes on my past.”

We both heard a loud cackle from the other room. He looked at me and said. “You’re not talking about the time I trimmed those photo prints with her best sewing scissors, are you?”

“Gabby Hayes,” I said.

“Smiley Burnett.”

Then another sound came from the next room. “Fuzzy Knight.”

“Fuzzy Knight?”

"That's right. Now both of you shut up and go to bed."

"Fuzzy Knight?"

That's him all right.