Seal Thief

I had a week-long vacation from work and absolutely nothing to do. It sucked. I pissed away the first two days wandering around Boston and chasing pigeons. That was okay but still pretty boring. Then I came across the circus

The circus was next to city hall. They had a big striped tent and everything. I wanted to check that shit out, but the clown at the entrance was a total asshole. He claimed the tickets were sold out. I was like, "Come on, dude! I have nothing to do. I'm so bored!"

But the clown wasn't having it. He was like, "Fuck you, dude. Get the hell away from me or I'll stab you." Then the clown pulled a knife on me. Well, I was sort of shocked at the violent disposition of this suspect clown. That said, I got the fuck out of there lickety-split as I'm not into being perforated.

Dejected, I started heading towards the train station when a nearby circus truck caught my eye. The rear door was ajar. When I saw it, my eyes lit up. "Okay," I said, "I'll steal some cotton candy or whatever. That'll show the dickhead clown what's what!"

So, as stealthily as I could manage, I crept up to the circus truck and climbed inside. Almost immediately, a powerful fishy stink caught me off guard. I recoiled violently. For about a minute I was a little bit dizzy and wobbly as if I'd taken a blow to the head. When I recovered, there was a seal chilling out in front of me.

I was like, "Oh fuck, a seal!" I mean, I'd never seen a live seal before. I'd seen them on TV, you know, being chased around by polar bears and what have you, but never, like, in the back of a truck. The seal was just chilling out and chowing down on some heinous-looking fish. I said, "Yo, seal! What's up?"

The seal quit feasting for a moment and eyeballed me with what seemed like upbeat skepticism. Its eyes were massive and black. It also had these cool whiskers. I was pretty impressed with the seal's whiskers, and I was about to tell it so, and that's when it occurred to me. "Oh fuck," I said, "I'll abduct the seal! That would be bad ass!"

So I said, "Yo, seal! You wanna come hang out? I'll make waffles!" Surprisingly the seal was totally down. As soon as I said "waffles" it jumped around and barked, and from that point on it just trotted along behind me like a well-behaved dog.

Me and the seal caught a train back to my place. Most of the other passengers were pretty impressed with my seal. Especially the chicks. They would check it out and be like, "Oh, is that a seal? What's his name?" or "What a cute seal you have!"

I just acted cool and played it up like having a seal was no big deal. "Oh, thanks," I said, or "That's kind of you to say," or some shit like that.

Actually it was sort of awkward. I'm not used to that kind of attention. The seal didn't seem to mind it at all. In fact, it was pretty charismatic. I think because it was in the circus the seal was used to being fawned over and shit. Before long it had this group of women around it, and the thing was, like, standing on its tail and balancing some chick's grocery bag on its nose. Its act started getting on my nerves. Fortunately the train arrived in Fenway before too long, and we got off and headed to my place.

I showed the seal around my apartment, in the process of which I turned the TV on. Then I got sort of distracted for a minute. See, there was a Bugs Bunny cartoon on. Bugs is an okay dude, but sort of a prick. On this particular occasion, Bugs was being a real dickhead to Yosemite Sam. That really pissed me off 'cause Yosemite is a pretty cool dude in my opinion. So I was watching this cartoon and meanwhile the seal was barking at me and shit because it wanted the waffles I'd promised it, but I was like, "Hold on, dude! When the fucking cartoon is over!" But it just kept barking at me. Eventually I got fed up, changed the channel to some loser show about motorcycles, and went into the kitchen to waffle some shit up.

So I busted out my waffle maker and did up a fucking enormous heap of waffles for me and the seal. While the waffles were cooking, the seal was absolutely going crazy and barking in this really upbeat sort of way I interpreted as waffle enthusiasm. I guess I'm sort of spoiled because I make waffles all the time, but the seal's waffle enthusiasm was contagious, and before long I was pretty amped up for some waffles too. In fact, by the time the waffles were all cooked, I was practically frothing at the mouth.

The seal was pretty hungry and it quickly polished off at least 16 waffles. I was kind of pissed because that only left two or three runty waffles for me, but what can you do? After eating the waffles, we drained a few beers and watched cartoons. Bugs Bunny was still on, and once again I was engrossed in an episode.

About halfway through, one of my buddies, Skinner, called me up. He was like, "Lynch, what you doing?"

And I said, "Eh, nothing, eating waffles and watching cartoons. Yo, I kidnapped a seal from the circus today."

Skinner was like, "Oh, that's cool." Then he told me there was this filthy band playing down the street for five bucks.

I was like, "Hell fucking yeah, I'll be there in 20."

So I got off the phone, and I eyeballed the seal. I didn't want to just ditch it, but at the same time I wasn't sure if I wanted it tagging along all night. That said, the seal was obviously a pretty cool and charismatic dude, and it would dig the show. "Yo seal," I said, "you wanna go to a show?" The seal barked at me in a manner I interpreted as enthusiasm. I changed into my dirty jeans, finished my beer, grabbed a beer for the road, and then me and the seal headed to the show.

The show was only about ten minutes away. I got in for five bucks, but they let the seal in for free, which was really cool. The band on stage was playing some sleazy garage shit. It was good stuff. Unfortunately we only caught the last song in the set. After that, I hit the bar, threw my eyeballs around, gave a shout to some of my buddies, and snared a couple of skuzzy cold ones for me and the seal.

The show was fun. Everyone at the show was totally stoked that I brought a seal. I was like, "Yeah, well, I wasn't gonna leave the seal at my place 'cause I figured it would, like, fuck the place up. Whatever." I chilled mostly out at the bar and shot pool while the seal mingled, barked, and hopped around like an asshole. It did all the standard horseshit seal tricks. It even balanced a pint on its nose. Chicks were glued to the scene, literally falling all over each other to get the seal's attention. Honestly, the seal was the fucking man. Although I hate to admit it, I was impressed.

The evening progressed. I played 50/50 pool, ran out of cash, and had a good buzz on. Things were starting to calm down. The last band was on and they really sucked. Like, they were absolute embarrassing garbage. People couldn't leave fast enough. My buddy Skinner said some dudes were throwing a fucking crazy party uptown, so I figured I'd split and check that noise out. But I didn't want to split without giving the seal a shout, so I did a few laps and hunted it down. The seal was hanging out with this really cute chick. Her hair was dyed bright blue.

"Yo, seal," I said, "I'm gonna jet. You wanna chill here or you wanna go to some party uptown?"

The seal barked at me in a manner I interpreted as curiosity.

"It's gonna be pretty cool, I think. They got load of beer and shit or whatever. I may try to swing a ride home late or I may just crash someplace. It depends what's up."

The seal barked at me in a manner I interpreted as disinterest. I was wasted, and my ride uptown was about to leave, so I just said, "Whatever, dude, here," and I gave the seal the keys to my apartment. "Crash at my place. I'll see ya tomorrow." Then I split.

Well, the party turned out to be a fucking bust. The kids were really into singing, and the music was this hokey garbage. It had a real "Hey, remember the time Johnny stole some bologna from the deli? That was hilarious!" quality to it. Bogus. I lurked on the porch with some of my friends and smoked a bunch of cigarettes. Somehow I caught the attention of this chick from New Zealand with long curly blonde hair. She was pretty cool but wasted. She ranted about rugby and her hatred for Australians for something like a half hour, then we caught a cab back to her place. I'm pretty sure we passed out before we did anything, but who knows? I woke up naked in her bedroom with a filthy monster headache.

I got dressed and split on the quiet, then I wandered around town until I found a train station. The ride home was a bitch. I had to piss so bad that I was seeing yellow. By the time I got within a block of my apartment, I was literally running. When I got to my building, I busted through the door, flew down the hallway, and dashed into the bathroom so fast that I didn't immediately realize that the door was wide open and the key was dangling suspiciously in the keyhole.

That dickhead seal douched my apartment with waffles. Seriously, there was crusty syrup, batter, half-eaten waffles, and fish goo stuck to practically everything. And my waffle maker was gone! That fucker stole my waffle maker! I was really bummed out. I loved that waffle maker! Thing is, what am I gonna do? Call the cops and say a seal stole my waffle maker? Ugh. I was just thankful it left me the key to my apartment.

I spent the rest of my vacation cleaning waffles and fish off the walls of my apartment. It was pretty shitty. I should be pissed but, hey, you know, it was something to do. Could have been worse. At least I wasn't arrested.

[back]