I fell in love with a mermaid. She had hair

I fell in love with a mermaid. She had hair the color of the night and her skin was covered with iridescent scales. I want to join her but she refused to let me drown.

treated shabbily by Poseidon, and I saw my opening. I set my mermaid up in a cozy aquarium in my apartment and headed out for an aggressive negotiation with Mr. P. I knew

I could count on my wife for understanding. At the meet with P. my cell rang. It was her:"So, Baby, a mermaid?" The tinkle of smashing glass. The sound of my pet's labored breaths.

Meanwhile Poseideon seemed to think the meeting was over & had left while I had been talking to my wife on my cellphone. I happened to look out the port hole. He was swimming away.

Dang it! and to think that I was about to seal the deal with him. I hang up on my wife and start-up the boat. "Follow that -uhh- God!" I was starting to think that it was too late

to save my marriage when suddenly Flopper the dolphin emerged in the sparkling waters starboard. "I'll ask Poseidon to make you into a merman," he suggested, "but you must promise

to give me a kiss!" Jeez louise. Flopper was a washed-up celebrity dolphin whose blowhole smelled like menthol cigarettes. But he knew Poseidon. "Me, or my mermaid wife?" I asked

"Both. And usually my brothers like to join in." So it was Poseidon, Zeus, Hades, Flopper the dolphin and his wife meeting up with director Ben Dover in a seedy strip joint.

They were all just about to "dive into the deep", so to speak, when Detective Manatee crashed the party, seeking his next unsolved mystery. His timing was, as usual, impeccable.