Chapter 14: Chapter Fourteen

The amusement park we were going to was in fact something called a ‘water park’, it was a massive place spread out over miles, and when it came into view I wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing at first. Thanks to the lay of the road and my excellent hearing, I heard the screams first and my tail threatened to curl in place.

“Relax, it’s fine. Those are ‘fun’ screams.” Rebecca explained to me, and based on the reaction of her infant, who was already starting to bounce with excitement in his seat, I found it hard to doubt.

Human screams can be quite shrill and it could have been more comfortable for me, but… for science I pressed on and forced myself to relax.

William parked the car in a wide open concrete lot filled with other vehicles, it’s worth noting that humans have very particular habits, they often enjoy journeys, but the destination is what they ultimately want out of it. They are a very busy, busy species, and seldom satisfied with waiting. An arcanian would have arrived where they intended and sat for thirty or forty of their minutes. A dlamisa like myself would have checked the area thoroughly for any scents of note before going in to my destination. But no sooner had we parked than William emerged from the car, got the cooler from the boot of his car and pulled out an armful of ice cold water bottles. The ice they’d bought at the store on the way rattled as he rustled around for one bottle after another and handed them to his mate.

Rebecca stored them in a large fabric bag that she wore over one shoulder, and then took two more and put them into her purse. William himself wore a backpack made out of cruder canvas material and mottled the color of sand and dirt. He put several more bottles in that, along with a few baggies of sandwiches which he likewise tossed to his wife who stored them in her bag as well.

Meanwhile I carried nothing. Now this is another difference between humans and other races. Men tend to have a lot more convenient storage than their counterparts. Rebecca carried the canvas bag and a purse, but her shorts had no pockets, while William’s shorts had two pockets near the top band and two large pockets called ‘cargo’ pockets down below on either side. Moreover, where he carried a backpack that sat easily on his back, Rebecca carried the large canvas bag over one shoulder. Anyone could see that carrying two bags on one shoulder plus the infant was awkward and that the backpack was more practical. It seemed to me that putting the infant in the backpack would have made things far more efficient, leaving me curious.

So I asked about it all.

“Why not carry Michael in a backpack, and why don’t you,” I pointed to Rebecca, “just put all that in a backpack too.?”

Rebecca and William stood dumbstruck for a moment. “Ummm…” They both said and scratched their heads.

“I never thought about just using a backpack… I just always carried things this way…” Rebecca answered.

“And why don’t you have pockets like he does, is it illegal?” I asked.

And again Rebecca just stared at her husband and then back at me.

“I-I don’t actually know why they don’t put pockets on women’s clothes… Maybe because bulging things ruin the lines and men can’t solve that problem so it doesn’t matter?” Rebecca let out a chortling laugh that her husband matched…

Human ‘humor’ is very strange, but a lot of their jokes pertain to anatomy, apparently they find their own and each other’s bodies to be hilarious and absurd. I didn’t truly get the joke, but I did note that humans often answer questions with jokes if they aren’t sure what the answer is. It may pertain to an innate insecurity in the species that changes their social dynamic.

Answers are power, and humor is often a shield, so I theorize that humor in the face of social power is meant to diminish the distance between the asker and the one asked.

“And you can’t store children in backpacks.” William answered, “Not just because he will smush the sandwiches and might pee on them and the water bottles, but because they need to be able to move somewhat freely.”

“Oh.” I acknowledged his answer, though both of them felt off in what they said, I add here that I distinctly heard Rebecca tell her husband…

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“I want us to buy a backpack for me online later.”

I suppose even humans can miss the obvious sometimes when it is just part of their world that things work a certain way. Perhaps we all do, and finding out what we’re missing by having a new perspective is part of why these programs of travel and exchange are so important.

As we got closer to the gate and I could see the towering rides, hear the metal machines, the splashing and roaring waves, I was confronted by something else I’d never seen before.

People streamed past the gate, handing over printed tickets one by one or two by two, to this giant of a human. He loomed over me in size, but he loomed ‘around’ me in girth. He wore a shiny green golf hat, which to explain, is like a failed baseball cap since while it has a visor, contains only a band around the head to rest on the human’s ears, but has no top over it to keep the sun off the head. His was a transparent green that made his face look rather sickly thanks to the change in light color the visor created.

His skin was greasy and mottled with red spots, and he gave off the smell of rotted Zentian bug milk. The shirt he wore had a wolf on it which bayed at the moon, and if he weren’t taking tickets at the entrance, I wouldn’t have known he worked there since other employees wore blue shirts with the water wave logo of the park.

“Tickets phlease” his voice was rough like he had a mouthful of rocks, and his dark hair hung unkempt against his cheeks so that it looked like it was connected to the beard that grew down and became bushy at his neck.

This was the first true ‘Body Odor’ that I experienced among humans, and I tell you, it is one of the foulest things I have ever experienced. When he looked at me, he frowned and growled, baring his corn yellow teeth, I was taken aback, and briefly hesitated.

He got a smug smile on his face and then I felt William’s hand on my back. “Relax, it’s fine, you didn’t do anything.” He said, and ushered me forward.

The man with the beard at his neck growled at me again, but thanks to William’s reassurance I approached and my human handed over the tickets. Perhaps because I didn’t stop a second time, the greasy human seemed chastened and said, “I’m sorry if I was rude, my kind doesn’t handle dogs well.” He pointed to the picture of the wolf on his shirt.

I suppose I did look kind of like dogs, but dogs looked like wolves so… what did it matter?

I didn’t get a chance to ask the human as I brushed past him to join William, Rebecca and Michael on the other side of the gate, so I asked my humans instead. “What’s with him? Why did he growl at me? Did I do something offensive?”

William and Rebecca came a little closer to me and each one shook their heads, “No, Bailey. That is what we call a ‘neckbeard’.”

I stepped a little farther away, “Are they a separate species?” I asked, with a smell like he emitted I had to ask.

“Don’t get me started.” They answered and then their faces lit up. “Let’s go have some fun.” Rebecca chirped and with that, I put the weird smelly growling human behind me.

At least for the moment.

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