Title: ASS Attendance By Cousin Tserisa (headpigeons@hotmail.com) (apologies for the backdating) Time: the ASS Rally, Sat 14th Place: Metro Toronto Zoo After translating for the very eloquent and ruggedly handsome Battle Yak, Tser walked around the Anti-Speciesism Rally pulling a red wagon, careful not to run over (and therefore opress) anyone/creature/thing attending. In the wagon rode Nick's undead cactus, and a water bucket in which Willoughby was sloshing happily. Willoughby picked at the watery remains of an artificially-tuna-flavored snow cone, and Tser gave a few drops of a melted plain one to the cactus. Tserisa herself clutched a key lime flavored cone. The whole speciesist flare up against humans had been unsettling (even though Tser was generally not classified as a human by those who knew her) but it had quieted down and after the Battle Yak's speech, things were going quite smoothly. Tser had come horseback to the event, riding Xandy, a chesnut Arabian, with Lavalianna, the burro, following and pulling a small cart in which the other animals rode. This was not species opression since the equines had volunteered for the job. Xandy, however, had trotted off early in the event, having spotted a cute and loveable llama. Xandy liked llamas. Tser thought she'd seen the llama too, but was distracted by Lava's requests for an artificially-hay-flavored snow cone. "What's that?" a human asked, pointing into the bucket at Willoughy. "Don't point," Tser said frowning. "It's very rude. Shouldn't you ask him yourself?" The man nodded. "My apologies. I'm all new to this anti-speciesism thing, my wife and I recently adopted a pig. What're you?" he asked the lobster. "Lobsters can't talk and I am his caretaker. Willoughby is an American, or Maine, lobster, Homarus americanus. Of course, these are only the human designations for his species," Tser replied. "I thought lobsters were red," the man said, tipping back his snow cone (the conical holder was not made of paper, so as not to opress any trees, but rather a polymer) to catch the melted flavored water. Tser narrowed her eyes. "A common misconception of a speciesist world as portrayed by human-biased media. If your lobster is bright red, it is either a dead, cooked lobster," and here she shuddered, "a crayfish, or a rubber squeeky toy. Try squeezing it to find out." "Oh." The man blinked. "I'm sorry, Willoughby." Tser smiled. Willoughby waved his antennae and filtered some snow cone. Tser put the artificially-hay-flavored snow cone in Lava's feed bag, and then found a bench to sit down. Lava trotted off toward rumors of a small impromptu conference for species tolerance between odd- and even-toed hooved animals. Tserisa watched all the various species trotting, walking, flying, slithering, padding and wafting by. ChuChu, the cute and clever African grey, had flown off to mingle with the other parrots. They discussed the best pelleted and extruded diets, Ultimate Destruction techniques, proper decibels for screams and squawks (and the difference thereof) and interspecies communication. ChuChu herself was fluent in cat, dog, human, and telephone (not technically a species, but she was rather proud of imitating the answering machine beep). She didn't have the broadest vocabulary by any means, being a young bird, but she impressed them all by singing the Batman theme ("Nanananana wooo!"). Batman was a non-speciesist hero. Wiggy was having a blast off at the opposite end of the zoo. He was ecstatic at being allowed to run around sticking his cold nose between any un-shoed toes without any opression, and there were many un-shoed hooves and toes at the event. Many beings squealed upon first contact with the mustelid's affections, but after watching him bounce around like a fur-covered slinky and listening to his happy dooking, they usually gave him a nuzzle, slurp, or petted him. "They're still shooing the pigeons out of the Shrine," somebeing nearby mumbled. Despite herself, Tserisa was a Cousin, this was War, and she couldn't help but "overhear". "Well, y'know, pigeons have *no* rights. I hear some waterbugs, ladybugs and gnats got squished, some cows needed emergency liver transplants, and there's a big hubub about strawberries staging a protest at a local grocery," a second being said. "Didja notice there're no pigeons here?" first being said. Tser shook her head. That had been one strange coronation; not that the Cousinly Leader expected *anything* to ever be normal. She had found the ladybugs to be very pretty however, and the few that landed on her blouse had generously given her entirely black outfit the color splash her lack of fashion sense had denied it. The Cousinly leader was glad to have met up with Moses at the Rally. The lizard hadn't come back since their fight about flora opression, and Tser worried about the large, glaring green iguana, despite the fact that the iguana weilded a pretty mean tail and some intimidating eyes. However, it was fairly understood that Tser would be returning home with the other Cousinly Critters sans the velociraptor-impersonator. Late into the night, the human, lobster and cactus met up with the parrot, ferret, horse, donkey and iguana, and started back to CERK. Tired and full of snow cones, clutching their comemorative rocks, they returned home to their almost-plaid free room and quickly fell asleep (except Nick's cactus, because cacti don't sleep). # # # -- Cousin Tserisa & the Cousinly Critters - headpigeons@hotmail.com - Cousin, Ratpacker 8:>X and CaddyWhack FK Stuff: http://geocities.com/tserisa/ CaddyWhacks: http://velvetdragon.com/caddy/