Curse these clumsy hoofs! said Blurtso. How am I going to update my blog if the only letters I can type are big and fat and round? . . . hddp:// . . . bdupdo.pom . . . bburrredppo.dom . . . buugdo.cccob . . . blllursdpo.bob . . . bllllurrdddsssspo.cog . . . bplurpppsdso.blob . . .
What a nice barn, thought Blurtso. I wonder where the animals are? And the people? It’s hard to believe they’ve abandoned this barn. I guess they’ve all rushed off to the future.
I think I will be lazy today, thought Blurtso, as he rose from a night of sound and restful sleep. Yes, that’s it. Today is a good day to be lazy. The sun was shining and the morning was cool and the grass was covered with dew. But how does one go about it, how does one go about being lazy? Let me see, he thought, what does a lazy person do? Most lazy people don’t move around a lot, so maybe if I don’t move around a lot I will be lazy. Blurtso stood in the grass with the dew on his hooves and didn’t move around a lot, and then he didn’t move around a lot some more, but after a while he felt he wasn’t being lazy, he just felt he wasn’t moving around a lot. Lazy people also seem to breathe slowly, he thought, so he began to breathe slowly, then he breathed slowly some more. Hmm, thought Blurtso, that still doesn’t feel like what I think being lazy is supposed to feel like. Lazy people also don’t do jobs that they’re supposed to do, so maybe I could invent a job I am supposed to do and then not do it. So Blurtso invented a job and then he didn’t do it, but he still didn’t feel lazy. In fact, after several more attempts Blurtso began to feel that this morning was turning into one of the busiest mornings of his life. What could the solution be, he thought. There must be some trick right in front of my nose. Blurtso thought and thought and thought, and then he thought and thought some more, but he couldn’t find the answer. I give up, he said with a snort, I don’t care if I ever learn to be lazy, and then he lay down in the grass and drifted off to sleep.
“Welcome,” said the professor, “to Music Appreciation.”
Is he serious? said Blurtso.
Welcome, said the professor, to Animal Husbandry 101.
It’s a question of finding the appropriate medium
for the appropriate soul.
O.k., said the professor, let’s try number three. Two trucks, each filled with pumpkin pies, are going to the Whipped Cream Factory. The first truck leaves fifteen minutes before the second truck and drives at a speed of forty-five miles per hour. The second truck drives at fifty-five miles per hour. There is a donkey in the back of each truck. The donkey in the first truck can eat seventeen pumpkin pies in an hour, and the donkey in the second truck can eat twenty-one pies in an hour…
There are three bridges, the first at five miles, the second at ten, and the third at fifteen. Both trucks can travel only twenty miles per hour on the bridges. Each bridge is a quarter mile long. O.k., the question is… at the moment when the second truck overtakes the first, which donkey will have eaten more pumpkin pie? Who would like to give this a shot?… How about you in the front row, the one with the boxing-glove nose… Me? said Blurtso. Yes, said the professor, which donkey will have eaten more pumpkin pie? Neither, said Blurtso. Neither? said the professor. They will have both eaten the same. The same? said the professor. Yes, said Blurtso, each donkey will have eaten as much pumpkin pie as he could.
What an unusual interpretation of Chopin! said the band master.
I suppose I am a temporary thing, thought Blurtso. The day will come when I am gone and forgotten. As if I never existed. As before I existed. In the meanwhile I’m here, standing between two oblivions, pausing to enjoy a snack, and sending a mouthful of grass… to its next oblivion.
We had over three thousand applications to our university, said Harlan. Three thousand! said Blurtso, what will be the criteria for getting in? I think we should choose the first six, said Harlan. “First come, first serve,” said Blurtso, is an excellent criterion.
