Fuzzy Wuzzy was not, in spite of the rhymes to the contrary, a bear. In fact he was a breed of dog called a “Newfoundland”-though he had no idea what the hell that meant or what land of any kind, new found or not, had to do with being a dog or a bear. As the summer once again crept across the heat-capturing valleys of Southern California he began to feel a little miffed that his fur hadn’t been trimmed in years. Now, we’re not talking dog years, because then we’d be into double digits as far as Fuzzy Wuzzy knew, but by the reckoning of people he was in fact five years old and as near as he could tell, his unfortunate name was the sole reason he had never received so much as a trim.
Fuzzy sat at the end of a long leash looped around the leg of a small chair at a sidewalk cafe. His owner, a singularly annoying woman called Missy, sipped a maple-scented black beverage from a small cup, her pinky finger extended into the air aristocratically. Fuzzy loved his sweet master, for she always snuggled him and fed him and let him sleep at the foot of her bed, where he felt most of the time like he belonged. On occasion she would kick him straight off the bed in her sleep, but Fuzzy always knew that when he awoke sore and disoriented on the floor it was not a fact caused by any meaningful malice by his owner. No, Fuzzy Wuzzy was loved.
So as the sun crept over the buildings across the street and began to warm the front of the sidewalk cafe, Fuzzy began to feel hot. His owner continued to sip the black liquid and in fact asked the waiter to bring her another while she gabbed away to the little pink, glitter-covered rectangle in her hand. Fuzzy had never figured out what was so interesting about this little rectangle that Missy would want to talk to it so much, but talk she did, and Fuzzy just panted away as sweat began to make the fur on his head droop down into his eyes.
And then he spotted it: A man with amazingly long and bushy hair sat in a funny chair on the sidewalk across the street wearing what appeared to be a very odd dress that extended from his neck downward. A blue and red candy-striped pole twirled on the side of the building beside him. Another man approached, laughing jovially as he brought out a small silver shape with a long black tail and spoke to the man in the chair, gesturing awkwardly around his own head with the little silver shape. Fuzzy panted as the sweat continued to build. The two men laughed and then Fuzzy’s heart nearly stopped. The man in the chair leaned his head forward while the other man pushed the little silver shape against his head, and to Fuzzy’s amazement and delight large swaths of hair dropped away, some of it landing on the ground while other bits blew away in the occasional gust of wind.
Fuzzy looked back at his owner. She gabbed. He looked at his leash, still attached. I must get the silver shape! he thought, his heart beginning to pound. He tugged a little on the leash but Missy didn’t seem to notice. He looked back and was astonished to see a pasty flesh color beginning to emerge from beneath the wild mane of black hair worn by the man in the funny dress. Fuzzy whimpered and risked just the faintest bit of a bark.
“Shut it, Fuzz! Mommy’s totally talking!” Missy said with a roll of her eyes. Fuzzy began to worry. The chair across the street was now surrounded by a pile of hair and Fuzzy was eager to add his own to it. He tugged again on the leash, hoping for it to break but his strength was not quite enough to break it without possibly overturning Missy. He looked back at her and whimpered again as the waiter poured what must have been her ninth cup of maple-black liquid and she giggled again. He pawed a little at her leg but she brushed him away and gave him a scowl that he knew was a look of disapproval, but as the sun began to thunder down upon his carpeted flesh he felt a sense of urgency that he had never before known. He turned again to watch the two men across the street and this time his heart turned from flesh and blood into steel and resolve.
Both men were now standing, but the once mane-entombed man now glistened in the late morning sunlight with not so much as a speck of hair anywhere on his head. This was too much for Fuzzy. He tucked himself down into a tightly wound little ball by Missy’s feet, focused all his power into his legs and as she tilted her head back to take another sip Fuzzy Wuzzy launched himself at full force toward the chair on the other side of the street. He accelerated like a rocket but the leash did not break. Instead it tore the chair out from under Missy, sending her tumbling to the ground as her cup of lukewarm coffee splattered all over her clothes and those of the surrounding patrons.
Fuzzy reveled in the feeling of the wind on his face as he darted across the black pavement, ignoring crosswalks and streetlights as he focused on his singular goal: that beautiful funny chair and the man with the silver shape. He howled as he darted nearer, his leash skittering along the asphalt behind him, and a cry of happiness left his mouth as he leapt into the air, fully positioned to land perfectly in that chair and wait his turn to be boldly, beautifully bald.
So when Fuzzy finally settled into that beautiful, funny looking chair and looked pleadingly at the man with the silver shape, his owner storming across the street, drenched in maple-black liquid, the two men laughed until tears stained their cheeks and even Missy couldn’t hold herself back from smiling in between the scowls. And after a torturous few moments of petting and teasing the poor animal, Fuzzy finally got his haircut.
The End.