When I was a little girl I really super loved lions.
My grandma had given me a picture book called "Lions" and it was amazing. It showed little drawings of lions and I loved learning about them. It was great.
Well, when I was about 6 or so my dad took a three week trip to Israel on tour. When he got back he brought us literally the most gifts ever. Among all the most wonderful things everrrr was a little plastic lion.
He was hollow and his mouth was open in a ferocious mid-roar which was perfect. It was perfect because this meant I could feed him.
Anything that was small enough to fit in his mouth I jammed in and then popped back out. OOOhOOO...
Well, after some serious lovin' for about a month, this lion started to look pretty un-ferocious. The painted plastic was starting to rub off, particularly around his face where I perpetually jammed his face into "prey" when he would "feed."
But the saddest and most de-ferocious-fying feature of him was his lower jaw. Or rather. The absence of the lower jaw. I had accidentally ripped his lower jaw off in a particularly vigorous feeding session so now Mr. Lion looked like a doofus.
In addition to my lion I loved bugs, particularly the dead June bugs that seemed to collect on our porch. The best thing about these dead bugs was that they made perfect lion food, which I discovered one fateful day.
Well, I jammed in about 20 of those dead June Bugs, the maximum amount that would fit inside my doofusy, slack-jawed lion.
The next day was bath day and my mom said I could pick out a toy to play with. She went and turned on the water.
I ran and grabbed my lion, forgetting that I stuffed him with 20 dead bugs the day before.
I got in the water, Mr. Lion in my hand.
You know what Mr. Lion wants? A big drink of water!!!
I submerged my lion, filling him all the way up with water.
Gradually, in a neat little procession, one-by-one, the dead June bugs floated out of his mouth, sprinkling the bath.
My mom, who had just come in to turn off the faucet had the most priceless expression and I, who was actually a little embarrassed, started scooping the bugs out of the water, placing them on the side of the bathtub, trying to act as nonchalant as possible.
"Where did these..."
I shrugged.
I don't think she wanted to know why I was bathing with 20 other June Bugs. 20 other reconstituted, soggy dead bugs. Well, mom. Now you know.
It was the lion's fault.
