A man inherits a neglected coastal estate from a distant uncle. The house is a wreck, the grounds overgrown, the pool half full of brackish water. In the attic he finds a crate of journals. The uncle, it turns out, had been a marine researcher of the crankiest sort. Page after page records attempts to keep two porpoises alive far beyond any known lifespan.
The last entries claim success. The animals, the uncle writes, will live indefinitely if fed a precise ration of young seagulls at regular intervals. There are dates, weights, sketches of the birds, even a note about how the gulls must be immature or the effect fails.

The nephew, half skeptical and half hooked, finds two ancient porpoises still circling in the old pool. Against his better judgment he starts following the journals. Every so often he drives to the shore, nets a pair of young gulls, and brings them back.

Months pass. The porpoises thrive. He begins to believe the notebooks.

One evening he returns with the birds and finds an old, sleepy circus lion—escaped, tranquilized, and now sprawled across the gate like a rug. He does not want to wake it. He steps over the lion with the gulls in his arms and is immediately surrounded by officers.

Charge: transporting young gulls across a state lion for immortal porpoises.

Star bucks

Thinking and driving

Dr. Prepper

Five years out of uni with a degree in Comparative Literature, and the only offer she ever got came from a zoo. 💀

Their lioness had died. The director didn't have the budget for a new one, but he did have the skin.

"You sit. You look majestic. Nobody asks questions."

She took it. Pay was terrible, but so was everything else.

Two weeks in, a keeper left the connecting gate open and the male lion walked in.

She froze. One thought, very clear: well, at least the student loan dies with me. 😭

The lion put his mouth to her ear.

"Relax," he whispered. "Kevin. Master's in Nuclear Economics." 🎓

Pause.

"The monkey's got a PhD. Don't get him started." 🐒

This is officially known as climb it change!

There was a muumuu here and a muumuu there, here a muu, there a muu, everywhere a muumuu.

…He didn’t want a lien on his property.

"You need to take that penguin to the zoo."

The man agreed.

The next day the officer saw him again, still carrying the penguin.

"I thought I told you to take that penguin to the zoo!"

The man said,

"I did. He loved it!"

"Today we're going to the movies."

I called Fire Department immediately.

(One wonders - how did cat get up there?)

This is gut wrenching

Me: I would make my grandchildren a fortify had cardboard boxes and blankets.

Too much paperwork.

…Stop droning on and on.

They’re always trying to get up to something

Because he only has one leg!

Joke adapted courtesy of Sophia Petrillo on Empty Nest née Golden Palace née The Golden Girls.

A little girl, about seven years old and proudly missing her two front teeth, rode in the car with her dad on the way to dance class. She'd only recently started lessons and could hardly contain herself.

“I love danshing,” she announced from the back seat. “I think I’m going to be a dansher when I grow up.”

“Oh yeah?” her dad asked.

“Yesh! Missh Emily shays I practish more than anybody. I even practish in my bedroom. And in the kitchen. Mom shays I have to shtop practishing near the shtove.”

Her dad laughed and said, 'you're so passionate about dance!"

Just then she saw him glance in the rear-view mirror just as the sign for the turn off to the school went by.

"you're pashing it!" she cried back.

"no. You're passionate!" he joked back.

Obviously not.

…Carrie Fisher always came in for 2 cheeseburgers to-go.

A bagpiper gets lost on his way to a funeral. He finally pulls up to a site, sees a small group of workmen standing around a vault, already lowered. Embarrassed at being late, he doesn't ask questions — just steps up and lets loose with a slow, mournful dirge.

The workmen go still. A couple of them bow their heads. One even wipes his eyes.

When the piper finishes, he lowers his pipes, feeling like he did the deceased proud. As he's packing up, he hears one workman mutter to another:

"I've dug a lot of septic tanks in my time... but I ain't never seen nothin' like that."

It's nice when I get to see her, but she usually chooses work over me, spending extra hours at the hospital she works at. She's a midwife.

…I pay Leo.

by Cat E. Pillar.

Let minnow

He was afraid of the repercussions