"Awww, what a cute little turtle!" he marveled. The baby turtle, about the size of his thumb's fingernail, wiggled on his finger. Its tiny legs struggled to climb and move somewhere.
"It's so cute it looks almost good to eat! Hmm… maybe…"
It was a fine sunny day when I took a stroll through the zoo with my stuffed puppy. Because, c'mon, who wouldn't want to stroll through the zoo with their stuffed puppy?
I passed by the lemur cage and heard a rattle. A lemur was staring up at me with wide, round eyes.
"It's so hot out here," muttered Poppy the pigeon. The fountain in the park invited him for a spell. He soared down, perched on the edge, and jabbed his tiny pigeon head into the stream. "Ahhh, refreshing." It was. The fountain's water was really refreshing.
Nearby, something squealed. Poppy popped up. Two boys were skateboarding down the park. They were weaving in and out of terrified pedestrians. And both weren't wearing helmets.
"Hey stupidhead, that's my cup of latte!" Leslie shouts.
The guy looks down at the latte, snorts, and takes a gulp. "I don't see your name on it," he huffs. Fuming, Leslie starts to wave her hands through the air.
Barney cautiously leans over the "pad thai" and sniffs. Sniff sniff.
Suddenly, a tendril of pad thai leaps up and grips his nose. He yelps! The tendril snakes into his left nostril and out the right one.
"After a long, hard day," Sunitha says with a breathy sigh, "there's nothing I like better than to down a good cold one."
She picks up a bottle of Negra Modelo and tosses it back expertly.
You know the Wear Sunscreen Speech, right? If not, where have you been? Under a rock buried in the sand behind an outhouse on an island with dark sunglasses at night? Tsk tsk.
The Wear Sunscreen Speech—sometimes simply known as the "Sunscreen Speech", but originally called "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young"—was written by Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich way back on June 1, 1997 as a fictional commencement speech that she'd like to give if she were ever asked to.
For some reason, a mischievous student decided to send the speech around as a MIT commencement speech given by Kurt Vonnegut. Weird, huh? If you've seen that email, now you know who really wrote that speech—Mary Schmich and not Kurt Vonnegut (though Vonnegut could have certainly written something just as witty & profound).
"Did that really happen?" people often ask me. "Is all of that true?"
Then I look them in the eye and say, "No, it's not."
Yes, I admit it. I, Mike Lee, am a liar.
Dear Adults,
Hi. I am a little boy living in a small town in America. One day, I will grow up and be an adult just like you.
I am writing to ask you something very important to me. Please don't kill our planet.
I'm sitting in a Barnes & Noble right now. As usual. Next to me are a father and son, sitting at a table and reading quietly.
The boy looks young; maybe first or second grade? The father looks pretty young too; maybe only a few years older than me.
Then the thought struck me: I totally want to be a father who brings his kid to Barnes & Noble too.
Weekly random rambles, musings & writings of Mike Lee in San Francisco, CA