"Use Your Head, Fred," With Magical Powers

Once upon a time in a huge metropolis called Danville, Va. There lived a 10 year-old boy named Fred. He did not like going to school because his teacher, Mrs. James, was always getting a little bit irritated with him because his mind was always on other thoughts besides what he should have been concentrating on. That irritated Mrs. James to the point where she actually got mad at him and sent him to the principal. When he asked Mrs. James what the crime was that the little boy had committed, she told him, “The boy had no initiative to do his schoolwork or homework. He’s failing every subject. That’s including his p. E. because he won’t concentrate.”

In the 21 years the principal had been principled, he had never heard of any student who actually couldn’t pass p. e., but he was seeing his first with Fred. When his teacher would ask him a question to be answered in front of the class, he told her he didn’t know the answer and she’d always say, “Use your head, Fred!” Even after school while he’d be playing with his friends he would forget the rules to any game they would be playing, even Tag. That’s when his friends would yell, “Use your head, Fred!” as well. Needless to say, after not being able to even remember the rules to the simplest games like Tag, his friends didn’t want to have anything to do with him so they stopped calling and coming over to play with him. That led to a really sad, lonesome life for him. The reason for his problems were he just wouldn’t think about what would happen in the immediate future. Even when his teacher, Ms. Johnson told him to whip the blackboard off and he told her he didn’t know how, she said, “Use your head, Fred!” and so he wiped it with the top of his head until all the other students started laughing at him. Then the teacher sent him to the principal’s office because she thought he was trying to be funny.

The onslaught continued after Fred got home and started playing with his buddies. His parents would give him some instructions to do his chores, but his lack of concentration and inability to problem-solve on his own began to take its toll on him and needless to say, the exact same thing happened with his friends as well. When he forgot which was the best way to block on the line while playing football, the other offenders said, “Use your head, Fred!” so the next play he butted the defender, knocking him down and hurting his arm and legs. That was all because of his inability to think about the consequences of his behaviors in advance before acting on them. That leads to a horribly frustrating type of lifestyle for the youngster.

Then one day when Fred was going to his garage in order to get on his bike and just ride through his hood to help clear his mind, noticed a tiny light floating in the air about 4 feet in front of him. When he tried to change directions it followed him. Then when he stopped to let it pass by, it also stopped. Suddenly there was a huge puff of smoke. That lasted for only a couple of seconds. When it had cleared, he saw a little, tiny pixie fluttering in mid-air. At first it frightened him, but as he stared at it, a great feeling of relief covered his whole body so he knew that little flying creature was a right nice thing. A couple of seconds later it spoke to him saying in a pretty, angelic tone of voice, “Hay, fred! Don’t be scared, I’m your buddy, and I am on your side! I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing here with you at this point in time, hug?”

“Well, the thought did pass by my mind a little while back,” replied Fred with a half-way smile, “Actually, I was kind of wondering just what the heck you are and the reason for your presence!”

“Well,” said the little, flying creature, “my name is Patty. Remember, ‘Patty-The-Pixie’ is what my friends refer to me as. I’ve been sent down by Mother Pixie. When a person has some major needs, one of us gets sent down to help that person.” Then she smiled even brighter and twinkling lights came out all around her, thus surrounding her with the prettiest array of colored lights Fred had ever seen. That got his hopes up since he didn’t believe in fairies before, but he was definitely seeing one, and since seeing is believing, it changed his opinion about them.

Yet when he tried to convince his friends and parents about seeing ferries, of course they didn’t believe him but they did tell him if he wanted ferries he should go to the Harber and ride a car onto it. Other people told him, “life isn't ‘fair-y’ to some people, then they’d laugh. Still others said he was getting confused by going to so many county and state fairs that he’d just gotten confused about what was made-up or reality. Still others thought he just wanted some attention which is why he was making up suh absurd stories. Many people told him he needed to save those wild tales for telling his dog even though they were more than just, “dog-’tales.’ “ They told him unless he stopped doing that his life would be extremely, “Ruff!” Yer people were really, “hound”-ing him to tell the truth all the time. Because of that, people had been treating him like he was a regular k-9 which really did upset him, then they would tell him to go away. After he had departed from their presence, they would all say, “Praise the Lord he’s not here any more! Now we can finally say, ‘dog-gone!’ and actually mean it for a change!” Still, poor Fred was constantly being “hounded about his making so many poor decisions in his life. Still, everybody wanted Fred to tell the truth about everything so they could trust him a lot better.

Finally his parents got so sick and tired of him confabulating all the time, or rather making that, “con-’fib’-ulating,” they yelled at him to get out of their happy home until he could learn how to tell the truth about things. That upset poor Fred big-time because he loved all of his family and wanted them to be proud of him more than anything in the world, but for whatever reason, he physically could not stop telling all those falsehoods, so as he walked along kicking the rocks in front of him as he went, suddenly he noticed there was a donkey by the path he was walking on. He smiled at him and to his surprise, that animal actually smiled back with a large, toothy grin, which actually shocked Fred. Yet the thing that surprised him even more was when it said, “Hey there, buddy. Looks like you’ve been getting in trouble lately. Well, because of that, I’ve been nominated to invite you up to my pad. Don’t worry, I promise I’ll help you as often as possible. Judging from your expression it looks like you’ve neve talked to a donkey before. Well, congrats, buddy, you’ve just graduated. My name’s Dag. In fact, all the dogs around here are named Dag. That means we can talk about other dogs in front of them and they don’t know who we mean. There’s no reason for anybody to be upset about gossip. Pretty cleaver, huh?”

Fred wanted to say, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life!” but he didn’t want to upset any of the creatures who might be close by to that particular place he was at the time.

“Oh, and by the way,” continued the dog with his tail wagging, “It looks like you could use a friend. Well, I definitely need somebody to love and to love me back. I think we’re a good fit!”

“Uh, wow!” said Fred, not knowing what else he could say that would make any sense, but then he figured, “How much sense do I need to be having a conversation with a talking dog?”

Because his daddy was a Pentecostal pastor in a local Church, he had read him the Bible on a regular basis and insisted on him converting the most important Verses to memory, he knew that having a conversation with any kind of animal besides a human was absurd, but for whatever reason, he was actually speaking to one. That’s when he replied saying, “How can you talk?”

“Well, I started off with, ‘gah-gah’ and worked my way up to, ‘din-din,’ silly! How about you?”

That was all Fred needed, not only was he having a conversation with a dog, but that one was a smart-allick. That made him smile, but the smile was short-lived. Then the dog said, “Uh, and speaking of, ‘din-din,’ it’s Thursday. Do you guys eat on Thursday? If not, I’ll order a supreme pizza from Pizza Hut because they deliver. The prices have gone up which is a real pain-in-the-purse, but at least I can pay with ‘the snoyters’ and a few ‘penzogs.’ If it costs any more than that, I’ll have to go get some more smothings. Inflation sure is a pain in the tail!”

“Well, since you can talk, at least tell me your name,” said Fred. “Around here everything has to have a name. How about Rover? That’s a fairly common name for dogs on Earth. You won’t have to answer so many questions then. Besides, there is a mighty big spot on the top of your head anyway, and it has been pulsating since you’ve been here. That is better than Fido.”

Fred figured the name for the dog’s kind of money his new dog-friend would cost him had to be quite astronomical, but talking to an intelligent space creature was worth almost any price.

“Well, if you want my help, then you’ll need to behave like a normal dog,” said Fred with a shrug to show it was ridiculous, but necessary in order to have him spend some time together. “That means don’t do anything to attract a lot of attention. Just act like a normal dog would act.”

He put color and hooked him up to a leash. When he told him he should run with him, the alien said, “Oh, I know about runs. That’s what girls get in their stockings and it’s what baseball players get from running around the bases. My question is, are they good or bad things to you?”

“Well,” said Fred, “those are called homonyms. They’re words that sound alike but have, aw forget it! I need somebody to explain those things to me who understands the differences! That’s what makes English such a fun language to learn! You can even make up what we refur to as puns which is kind of like playing with words! There are lots of them in our language like,

‘Butler James is no help at all

according to Mr. McFall.

Imagine his wrath

when he said, “Draw my bath,”

and then James drew a tub on the wall.’ ”

After saying those words he laughed since he thought that classic, old limerick, which was one of his favorites because his Grandaddy had taught that to him. That made Dag make a funny sound, but Fred figured it was his way of laughing, but he sure hoped he got the pun.

“Tell me about your planet back where you come from,” said Fred with high hopes of learning some things to tell his teacher about it in school. “How is it different from things here on Earth?”

“The main difference is we let our humans run free,” said Dag. Down here you treat us like criminals behind bars. That’s not fair in my opinion. We treat all animals as equals. Down here you keep the smart animals either tied up or in jail, those little cages like where bad-guys are sent. You should see how we live on my planet. Well, on second thought, you might not like it. You must graduate from obedience school to live without being incocerated behind bars, in jail.”

That made Fred kind of reluctant to go there, but his curiosity was getting the best of him. He had to find out how life was on their planet which wasn’t even seen in the Milky Way. Still, his curiosity kept egging him on and making him want to learn more about life on other planets. Finally, those eggs got scrambled. It made him want to learn more about this strange, new galaxy which obviously had intelligent life forms in it, and he didn’t want to, “scramble” his brains by trying extremely hard to imagine how life would be on other planets that he had only seen from his binoculars standing on his front, “poach” sine he didn’t want the Enemy to make his brain feel like it had been, “scrambled” or, “deviled” too much while he was attempting so hard to think of how life could be on other planets which had the same kind of gravity and oxygen that we have down on our little planet Earth. That would really be an, “ ‘egg’-celent” thing to write about in his science report, although he didn’t know if it would go, “over-easy” with his teacher, Ms. Brown who’d said it takes a, “rotten” brain to crack any sort of, “yokes” on her. She knew that he needed something to, “white” about and not be, “shell”-fish with all the knowledge he had obtained during his trip to visit another planet, located in another entire galaxy which was further than any type of super-powered telescope could even begin to pick up since he figured it had to be several light-years away from his beloved planet Earth. “Omlet” ing you know it’s hard to keep the, ‘sunny-side-up’ on my face without feeling, ‘down’ the way a duck feels about things of that sort, for if I actually wanted to feel that way about things I would just get a, “duck,” which is not to be confused with what you should do when people throw things at your head, or else at least that might make for an, ‘egg’ celent theme to, ‘white’ some ephesus on for any kind of school report, although, (in c. b. talk), if you will, “keep your sunny-side-up and keep your dirty-side-down” while talking to truckers, it won’t let you, “lay” on your bed, even though you’d better not do that if you must put a, “chick-in” the mail to pay any kind of, “bills.” That would probably be something I would do because I’m such a, ‘bird-brain.’ I don’t know, ‘feather’ you get all these puns or not, but hopefully you at least understand and will either laugh at, (or moan at), my, “korney,” “Punch” lines, because even he wouldn’t be at all funny without his side-kick, Judy. Anyway, all I have to say about all these, “korney” lines is, “Aw, ‘shucks!’ “ It might help your brain if you can ever eat some of the powerful-tasty food that’s been raised, ‘On My old, Kentucky Home,’ but just try your hardest not to get, “fried” being in the sun too long, and do not be a, “Chicken” about at least trying to get some vitamin A from the sun. Oh, and speaking of, “the Son,” just remember the One of God is my best, and only Friend on this entire planet Who will sticketh closer than a brother,” according to what The Good Buck says. At any rate, hopefully these puns have helped the corners of your mouth to point north instead of South, so in other words, may this document turn your lips from an n shape into a u shape. When it comes to, “play”-on-words, I work extremely hard to do a, “pun”-tastic job of entertaining all the people who read this document. If not, you should go visit Nebraska because it truly is, “The, ‘Korn’ State” of this great country of ours. (I’ve been there to visit and there is nothing but pure, white corn, far as the eye can see). The guy who took me to visit wanted to bury me there, which would have been fine with me. At any rate, please don’t ever forget about Fred and his extremely unique, alien dog who was named Dag and changed the life of young Fred forever.

In 1974 at age 11, I had a head-injury that ruined my life forever. While swinging on a rope, over my driveway, mine broke. That sent me soaring about 18 feet, according to the other kids, and landed on the hard, unforgiving pavement. I was knocked-out cold. My friends both thought I was dead. They called my mom at work. I’d come to by then, but saw my pupils were dilated and being a nurse, knew that was bad. She rushed me to the hospital, thinking I’d be an out-patient, but I went into shock. There was swelling on my brain the doctors didn’t know to check for then. That’s left me legally-blind with severe memory-loss. I haven’t worked since 1998 so I’m living on my S. S. I. check which doesn’t leave me any play-money. Yet God’s blessed me big-time, case in point like what you’ve read. Call me sometime, or call me, Cuz at, 1-434-549-8268. Praise God for Alexander Graham Bellsky, the first telephone, “Pole.” Now the best ways to spread news are telephone, telegraph and, “tell-a-woman.” By, Cuz Roye.