General Moose

Moose generally enjoy a good romp in the swamp on a hot day. They like the muck between their hooves and to feel the cool water on their muzzle. The fashion conscious moose truly appreciates decorative pondweed strategically hanging from both antlers.

Though Mr. Bull Moose also sees the merit in a cool wallow, this moose prefers human watching to the extravagances of pondweed hanging. His natural curiosity occasionally gets him into trouble as the humans prefer to do the watching and are a bit uncomfortable with such a large creature getting too close. Unfortunately, Mr. Moose feels it is imperative to observe this species and the tactics they employ to conquer the world around them. It is quite clear that such observation is risky and the price to be paid may be the ultimate sacrifice, life itself. Try as it might this moose cannot stop this compulsion to know more and the blame for this desire falls squarely on the shoulders of the aliens.

It happened one day in May, ok one evening, at the local clearing. The joint, that is the clearing, was jumping. Every woodland creature of every description was there. It was a regular backwoods hootennanny. A celebration of Spring. The atmosphere was intoxicating.

The sun set and the stars arranged themselves in summer patterns; a brilliant square dance in the sky. One star broke away, acting quite un-star-like, by moving slowly and quite deliberately toward earth. None of the forest dwelling creatures gave it much notice until the object seemed to fill the sky. A certain moose, who shall remain nameless, was so fascinated by the sight it simply backed into the woods, watching in amazement, fresh grass hanging limply from its open jaw. Being rather young, and inexperienced it didn't recognize a 57 Chevy knock off, suited for interstellar travel, landing in front of it.

Though that might be enough for any creature made of firmer clay to turn tail, it simply caused the already drooping grass to drop from the moose's mouth. In fact as soon as the lights filled the night sky almost every woodland creature did turn tail and vanish. Almost every woodland creature.

The beings emerging from the interstellar Chevy just caused the curious moose to become rooted to the spot. The space travelers wandered about the clearing aimlessly and with no real purpose. Needless to say, they calmly looked about the place until accidentally shinning an illumination device straight into the eyes of this moose. The moose was transfixed at such a wonder. Before it knew what was happening it was tranquilized, loaded into the space ship becoming interstellar cargo.

Now it gets scary. Because, for what seemed like an unending period of time, this poor moose was poked, prodded and sampled. It was exercised, tranquilized, again, and experimented upon. -This is the scary part, so hold your breath.- Then for the most heinous experiment of all, the space folks tried to communicate with the moose. They tried sign language, Arabic, even moose calls and the Heratite mating dance, possibly known only to a small population of Heratitie in a little known backwater of the galaxy. Not even moving pictures of humans blowing themselves to tiny bits in surround sound seemed to get through. –Though it did make the accompanying popcorn hard to keep down.-

Just as the aliens were about to pull out their collective hair, that is if they had any, they employed their last resort. Neuro-therapy drugs. A blur of long pointy needles and various colored liquids followed. Scalp messages, cortex rubs and unfashionable headgear of every description seemed necessary. –Mr. Moose then became aware that they may be taking embarrassing pictures of him and posting them on something called "the internet."- In fact, through the drug induced haze, the moose had this eerie feeling it could understand its captors. Moose being one of the more private and misunderstood of woodland creatures, this moose, found this particularly befuddling.

When the moose recovered, while holding its head in one hoof and swearing it would never go to that clearing again, the interrogation began. The aliens asked all the usual questions, name, rank and favorite breakfast cereal. If the moose had any presence of mind it would have replied, "You can scan my furry butt." As it was, the space folk were quite congenial and very interested in the life of the average moose. Moose, still feeling the effects of the drugs and being rather amazed it could communicate at all, spilled its guts, told all. It revealed juicy details that would make gossip columnists blush. The space aliens were hooked. Now it was their turn to sit on the edge of their seats with mouths open, minus the grass of course, they had just had popcorn and did they want to spoil their dinner? If they had planned to remain objective and record this moment for future research; forget about it.

Tragically, the moose said too much. He explained the baffling habit of pond-weed-antler-decoration. A time honored tradition that all single moose, looking to get lucky, employ. Mr. Moose related the late night shenanigans precipitated by fermented pine cones, which most self respecting moose hope to forget. He even revealed the long held secret of the Loyal Gathering of the Moose. In one very rambling, mostly lucid, but riveting tale he betrayed his entire race. What would his mother say?

The aliens were so impressed, they recruited him on the spot, after IQ and dexterity tests. They then naturalized him, serialized him and Generalized him. They gave him a green card, the yellow card and the Jug Club card at Starbucks, now offering one free house coffee a month.

Now our hero heads up alien research expeditions across the known star systems. He observes. He reports. He catalogs, in triplicate, every discovery he makes. He takes his responsibilities seriously. He hopes to return to earth one day but wonders if he can ever live the life of an ordinary moose now that he is General Bull Moose?