It's okay, Cleland. Size doesn't matter.

Such an eventful night! Before I get started, let me show you a photo this very kind person has let me use, on condition I provide attribution. This image falls under a 'share alike' Creative Commons license. Not like the other images on my blog, which my biographer has quite rudely stolen and bastardized. I shall have to give him a stern talking-to.

The noise began even before dark, with sharp pops, ghoulish howls, and nasty screams. With the fall of true night, booming explosions came from above. I hid under the horse blanket and tucked my forelegs beneath my cephalothorax. This had been a bad idea.

Marge rapped on the passenger-side window. I uncurled myself, pressed the button, and the glass scrolled down.

"You can come out, Rump," she said.

"But there are people all around --"

"Drunk off their asses. Don't worry, no one will ever notice you. Now, come on out and enjoy the fireworks."

"I'll stay here, thank you."

I believe I've mentioned previously my atrocious vision. My hearing is acute, thanks to the bristles on my forelegs, and this auditory information gives me a tactile-visual view of my world. It's quite effective, but it does exclude me from certain things.

Fireworks, for example. From the cab, I could see brightness in the sky above the lake and precious little else. The noise -- how to describe the horrid noise? Hmm. I remember Tiffini trying to feed me Jell-o while I was hiding out in her chicken coop. Imagine that your world is Jell-o, and someone just gave the bowl a mighty shake. Then imagine that same someone taking a pair of electric beaters to the Jell-o and beating the living crap out of it. That's how much I liked these explosions.

But Tiffini was crying, "Oh please, Bare Rump, please oh please oh please, it wouldn't be the same without you by my side, I know it wouldn't --"

I was beginning to understand Marge a bit better.

Oh, well, I said to myself, and allowed the two of them to talk me out of the cab. On an intellectual level, I knew the fireworks were far away. I might have a ripping headache come morning, but for now, I'd tough it out. The things we do for children.

Between explosions, I assessed my surroundings. Marge had parked her semi at a rest stop overlooking the lakes. Several other semis had stopped here, as well as a few dozen pick-up trucks and a gang of motorcyclists, too. I soon understood why Marge had judged it safe for me to come out. She'd parked at one end of the rest stop. Our nearest neighbors -- our only neighbors -- were a trio of rowdy males drinking from bottles.

"Rum and Coke," Marge told me. "Goddamn college students is what they are. No real man would drink rum and Coke."

Unfortunately, they weren't drunk enough. They did notice me, and they came around for a closer look.

Now: if you're paying close attention, as I know you intelligent readers surely are, you're going to wonder how I heard any of the things those boys said, what with all the noise. And you'd be right. Oh, I heard a word here and there -- "Cleland, have you ever --", and "-- ass on it --", and, "-- saddle on it and call --", but for the most part, their jabbering confused me. Fortunately, the rasper stored their words in its buffer. That, along with Tiffini's and Marge's accounts of the night's events, have enabled me to reconstruct the following scene.

"Cleland," said the first boy, "have you ever seen such a big effin stuffed animal?"

Effin, you understand, has another meaning, but with Tiffini looking over my shoulder as I type, I have to respect her wishes. She says the F word is the horridest nastiest word in the English language, almost as bad as the C word.

"Nosirree, Andy," said Cleland. "I'd call it a teddy bear, but lookit the ass on it! Hey, little girl, what is that thing?"

"That's Bare Rump," said Tiffini, "the fastest killer in the whole galaxy. Why, I saw her throw Mr. Charles Bronson himself to a herd of hungry gators."

"Ain't that sweet," said the third boy. "If it was up to me, I'd put a saddle on it and call it Sally."

The other two seemed to think this was the funniest joke ever. Soon after, they lost interest and wandered back to their truck.

More explosions came from overhead; I soon learned that the howling, shrieking noises came from the small fireworks the college boys set off. Added to that were the occasional crash of broken glass (something else they thought uproarious: tossing their empties over their shoulders), and the whooping of moronic laughter. Would this evening never end?

That's when something big exploded right behind me. Or perhaps under me -- my abdomen convulsed with pain. Later, Marge would explain that the boys had set off a string of firecrackers inches away from my spinnerets; at the time, I could only react.

An important aside.

When fighting mugwasps, here's the best killing move. First, grapple your prey with your mid-legs, pinning his wings and stinger against his body. Next, while rolling the mugwasp over and over with your mid-legs, use the claws at the end of your forelegs to slice all the way around the mugwasp's exoskeleton. (Hopefully, you've remembered to keep your claws razor sharp, just for such contingencies.)

It's easy as ringing a tree trunk. When you're done, their back end falls out and their guts spill out. It's delovely!

When I came to my senses, the three college boys stood before us, naked as guilaba pups from the waist down. Their pants lay bunched at their ankles, and they looked at one another with the most humorous shocked expressions. Tiffini howled with surprise and delight.

They were (as Marge explained later) checking each other out.

"Cleland," said Andy, "I didn't know you were circumscised."

Cleland looked down between his legs. When he looked up again, his eyes were very large.

"Neither did I," he said.