It was a time for laughing, a time for love,

It was a time for laughing, a time for love, but most of all it was a time for

conflating importance and hiding unflattering details. First encounters among peacocks and other animals usually involved posturing, even death. Among mammals, it usually involved

low lighting and a six pack. At least that's what my mom always told me. She said I was special because I was conceived on a "Twelver." My eyes were really spaced apart on my head

Which would have been Ok had there not been three. That made for some rather disconcerting stares from children of all ages. But suck is the life of a cyclops. Momma always growled

when she was hanging out the washing. A curious but quaint habit that had passed through all female generations of her family. But three there were and the children would have to

scrape the sholsh buckets themselves. The older female sex can't do everything. Unlike the men, women actually did useful things. They wern't just habits, but products of sense.

And since they were the older sex and more sensible, they developed a vegetative form of self-propagation and dispensed with the men altogether. Men being men didn't like this

. Her crop was ruined. The once sticky buds were now pungent. The skunky aroma was overpowered by a bovine-haggis-pee smell that irritated the throat on even the slightest inhale

Yet, wearing a mask, she managed to pick enough to make her famous ale anyway. Deadly ale, yes, but that hardly mattered now that love had left her for good. She raised her glass.