A story from a payday-loan using friend…
I’ll step aside for an April Fool’s moment and let my friend Randy give you his payday loan testimonial. Enjoy!
“I am a rogue taxidermist…”
That’s right, a rogue taxidermist. Call me Randy. Sometimes, I’m also an anthropomorphic taxidermist. But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.
Do you know what taxidermy is? OK, here goes. The term is derived from Greek, for “moving skin.” According to Wikipedia, taxidermy is “the art of mounting or reproducing animals for display or for other sources of study.” It’s popular with hunters and natural history museums, but tanners and upholsterers have also played a role in the craft’s evolution.
Me, I love recreating natural-looking scenes. A dog looking with eternal love upon its master. A great bear, crackling with potential energy, suspended just moments before the strike. A wild manticore, tail bristling, wings ready to loft it skyward, gaping lion’s jaw opened in blasting roar.
Playing dress-up
Wait. A manticore? That’s where my specialty comes in – rogue taxidermy. Because fantasy creatures deserve a place in the den as much as lions, tigers and bears. That’s what rogue taxidermists do. Makes the house look like a mythological circus, like the traveling sideshow from “The Last Unicorn” or Dr. Seuss’s story “If I Ran the Zoo.” Sometimes I combine my rogue side with a more anthropomorphic impulse, dressing dragons in tux and tails or a kraken in Dockers Casuals. I love this stuff!
A funny thing happened…
Recently, I ran into some trouble. Everything was firing on all cylinders, as far as the quality of the specimens I was producing was concerned. I decided I was good enough to open up a museum and charge admission. A buddy of mine works in marketing at a local firm, and he helped me develop a mini ad campaign that fit my budget. However, it wasn’t a terribly hard sell, despite what you may think. My town is small, and the folk are eccentric. Moreover, since the town is small and located near the Interstate, a museum of fantastic creatures would make a good tourist stop.
Two days before I was scheduled to open, the strange boy I hired to clean the place forgot to lock up one night. Everything was intact that morning, save for one thing: all of the artisan glass eyes from my creatures had been removed! And to think, I had just used the last of my extra cash to buy extra soda for the grand opening.
Egads!
I didn’t know what to do. Who wants to see an eyeless griffin? A sightless djinn? Nobody, that’s who! I simply couldn’t see how I’d be able to come up with enough money to have Jeremiah at the glass shop make more for me at the drop of a hat. We’re friends, but I couldn’t ask him to do something like that pro bono. Word travels fast in a town of this size.
I was stuck, until I heard a jingle on the radio about getting a payday loan. As I was still pulling regular money working graveyard at the local A & P, I was able to qualify for a cash advance! In no time, I had enough money in my account to rush over to Jerry’s glassmaking shop to have new glass eyes made. I just finished gluing in the last set of eyes before my first museum customers of the day arrived.
Eye can see clearly now
Thanks to a payday loan, my grand opening was a success. Later on, I discovered that the cleaning boy hadn’t taken the eyes at all. It was Reptile Farm Larry, my biggest competitor among the roadside attractions in our town. He hid the beauties inside a mounted gator (greenhorns say “stuffed,” but that’s exactly how you’ll identify yourself as a yokel in my line of work). I know this because my cleaning boy also works for him, and what’s an unlocked door between friends?
Related Video:
Rogue taxidermy flirts the line between the impishly funny and the downright morbid – nothing wrong with it, though. There have been people making fish with fur and other animals for a long time. I just need to get me a set of Jackalopes!