I Swear

I'm still weighing the pros and cons of various book ideas being tossed around by my publisher. I'm not totally sure why they like the idea of books about cavemen, but I decided to throw together a sample, just because it's fun and it could pan out. I'm not too sure the time is right for the other thing they wanted to pitch.

I cranked out a thousand words just now for sample purposes. Tell me if you think people will find this even remotely amusing.

Man, what a morning. Some days it barely pays to leave the cave.

I got up and walked outside, and right away I realized I’d stepped in something. Tyrannosaurus pie. Up to my waist. Great. Just when you’ve rolled in all the right stuff and gotten your scent the way you want it, something like this happens. And Tyrannosaurus is last year’s smell. The guys down by the big communal fire are going to have a ball with this.

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I decided to go down to the tar pits and see if there was anything worth pulling out and dragging home. And of course, the good stuff—the bison and elk—had already been picked over. I found one of the neighbors sinking into the goo. He was pretty upset. I thought about whacking him with my club and making some more jerky, but…cannibalism? It’s just not hip any more. I pulled him out, and then we put on the usual aggression displays and went about our business. He just hopped up and down and made barking noises, but I stepped it up a notch by throwing dirt in the air. I think he was impressed.

I better not catch him stealing my material.

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I went over to see the chimps, to find out if they had found any good termite mounds to raid. I got nowhere with that. Frankly, they were distant. I know what the problem is. Here we are, standing more or less upright and using language, and well, look at them. Stuck in the past. Running around on all fours like a bunch of creodonts. If they were only a little more open to intermarriage, crap like this wouldn’t happen to them. And now they feel resentful.

Some of those chimp chicks are hot. And it wouldn’t hurt them to marry up to a full biped. But I guess old ways die hard. Chimps are big on tradition. When a chimp comes up with a new way of doing things, do they pull ticks off of him and bring him dead lizards and make him feel special? Hell no. They pull him apart and throw his head in the tar pit. Schmucks.

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Long story short, I ended up bringing home bear dung again. And of course, I caught hell from Susan. She’s always putting me down because no one in her family has opposable big toes. She thinks I’m too stupid to be a good provider, because my forebrain is so small. Always with the size jokes. Just what I need to hear when I’m psyching myself up for a mastodon hunt.

I told her, it’s not like I’m a monkey or anything. I’m not like my grandpa, who ate with one foot while picking his nose with the other. I can pick up and manipulate a few small objects. Big deal. She’s not perfect. Her mom has posture like a lowland gorilla. If she doesn’t watch it she gets calluses on her nipples.

The kids got on my back, too. Literally. I brushed them off with my club and told them there were chimp kids who would give anything for a good handful of fresh bear dung full of undigested blueberries. It’s loaded with antioxidants. But you know how kids are these days. If it isn’t mastodon or bison, they turn up their noses at it, and half the time, they expect you to cook it. Like some sort of hairless pansy with no giant gaps between his teeth.

I fear for the next generation. When I was a kid and my dad brought home dung, I took it and thanked him for it and called him “sir,” or a guttural noise to the same effect. These kids today, they have no idea what it’s like to grow up in the tail end of an ice age and have to work for a living. Spoiled punks. Back in my dad’s day, they would never have gotten away with it. My brother Sal had an attitude like that. And guess what happened to him? Jerky. That’s what old-time dads were like.

I miss Dad. I still use his femur to open Brazil nuts.