is it Cialis related? let’s not be too hasty

Just across the main creek near our house is this bath tub:

It reappears every winter.  It doesn’t migrate, we just forget about it until

the vegetation around it dies and falls away.  The folks we bought the farm

from would fill it with creek water and build a fire under it for a unique

bathing experience.  Had they not told me that, I would have entertained

any number of hypotheses as to why it’s there.  Hypotheses like:

(1)  It migrates.  It comes down from the Arctic Circle when cold weather

sets in, to keep its enamel coating from cracking.  As its herd heads south,

members disperse to maximize foraging opportunities.  They feed on the

many species of nuts, bolts, screws and nails native to this area.  This

particular tub is an alpha male, or “black belly”, as plumbologists would

call him.  The sooty hue of his mid-section suggests great virility.  Come

next summer, many little sinks and toilets will frolic under the watchful

eyes of him and their bidet mothers.

(2)  It’s a piece of art from the Neolithic period, created by Grnt b in a

time when last names were just being developed.  Originally meant to

be a wall hanging, it failed because the walls of that era were so flimsy.

This is one reason it couldn’t be displayed in art galleries, the other

reason being that galleries hadn’t been invented yet. Grnt b threw the

piece outside in disgust.  It filled with water and caught the attention

of American Standard b (the middle name had just been developed).

American invented the patent, patented the tub and fathered the

sanitation-industrial complex.  Grnt went on to revolutionize the

medium of cave painting by creating the immensely popular

“Kilroy Was Here”.

(3)  It’s a reject from Cialis ads.  It was once half of the proud pair of tubs

that contain attractive middle-aged mesomorphs soaking and holding

hands at beaches, on mountain tops, in deserts and forests.  You know,

places that don’t usually have plumbing.  But it got caught up in the glitzy

Hollywood life style and wobbled out of control.  Huffing bath salts one

night, it passed out over a pilot light and burned its mid-section.  Cialis

immediately invoked the “don’t disfigure yourself” clause of its contract

and shoved it off the set. Regrettably, it was during a mountain top shoot.

The tub hitchhiked to the U.S. – Canada line and snuck across when border

guards were rousting a nice family in a U-Haul truck.

(4)  It’s an extra-terrestrial waiting for the mothership to return.  Left here

years ago to study the possibility of colonizing earth, it keeps phoning home

to say “Get me the hell out of here!  The whole planet’s crazy and one of the

locals keeps sniffing me!”  Here’s how I imagine that:

The image is intentionally distorted because my imagination is, too.

(5)   It’s an old bathtub that somebody put there for some reason.

Occam’s razor would suggest that (5) is the most logical explanation, and would

be right.  But it’s a whimsical day here, snowing like God’s dandruff, so I’m going

to go with (2), at least until suppertime.