Fat Boobert

You remember the Fat Albert story told by Bill Cosby, back when he was funny? How the neighborhood boys decided to scare each other with a Frankenstein model on a dark staircase? And how the Cos pulled the trick on Fat Albert? When the Frankenstein jumped out of the shadows he related, "Shroom, he never touch one step [on the four flights out of the building]. I forgot I was standing behind him."

Boo has been going out with me in the early morning to pick up the newspaper. He rides along in the crook of my arm, sniffing the smells and twisting his head right and left to peer into the darkness. That came to a screeching halt yesterday until the time changes and there's a little more light at that time of day.

We were already most of the way down the driveway when I realized something had spooked Boo. I couldn't see anything at all, but he was getting more and more perturbed. It was only a few more steps to the paper, so I held on and picked up the pace. Just as I reached the end of the drive, the deer that had been standing silently in the neighbor's yard decided to take off.

Shroom. Boo's hair went on end over his entire body, he ran up my chest, down my back and headed for the house. Since I had a bad experience with a scared cat about 4 years ago and still have the crooked finger to show for it, I did not hesitate to release my hold on him when he did his imitation of Sylvester facing the Jekyll Tweety in that classic cartoon. I trotted along behind him as fast as my little old lady legs can move and hoped he wouldn't head into the darkness.

I needn't have worried. He went straight for the door and was reaching for the handle, looking over his shoulder like he was wondering what in the world was taking me so long to get there. He shot into the house like the devil himself was on his tail. Or maybe Frankenstein.

He didn't even ask to go along this morning.

LSW