by Nathan Wada

Created on: August 17, 2009

LOCATION: Yosemite National Park

CHARACTERS

NATE: A snarky and highly judgmental raccoon, he is oblivious to his own faults.

ROGER: An affable and level-headed moose

THE TOKUNAGAS: A family from Vermont that is camping at Yosemite.

(Dusk. The Tokunagas are grilling their dinner over a campfire. Nate and Roger observe them from a few hundred yards.)

NATE: Look at those savages, Rog. You explain to me how humans have made it this far. Clumsy, oafish, goofy-lookin' bipeds. And yet the word on the street is that they somehow assume that they're running this joint.

Yeah, right. Planet of the Hairless Apes; please.

ROGER: I dunno Nate. I've been talking to some of the owls who actually go and fly around down where the humans generally live, and they say that some of what humans have done is pretty amazing. I mean, look at that car they rode up in. I can't outrun it, I know that.

NATE: (haughtily) That "car," as you call it, is nothing more than a donkey carcass with wheels. I have this on good authority from Herman the Squirrel. He was down where those cavemen congregate and saw the whole thing put together with his own two eyes.

But come on, I wanna get a little closer to this freak show.

(Nate and Roger sneak up to about 75 yards from the Tokunagas.)

ROGER: What's that they're eating? And what's that red and yellow goop they're pouring onto it?

NATE: It's very clearly a moose-burger. ... Just kidding. No, but humans apparently call that a "Hot Dog," and the fact that they eat something like that stands up as some of the surest proof that humans are in fact the least evolved species in the animal kingdom.

Hot Dogs, my large, stately friend, are naught but carrion - the diseased and discarded leftovers of newts, dragonflies, abandoned charcoal briquettes, and hippo meat.

ROGER: (With raised eyebrow) Uh, that sounds like a pretty incongruous mix there, Nate. "Abandoned charcoal briquettes and hippo meat?" Less-evolved species or not, I can't imagine ANY animal eating that.

I gotta say old friend, sometimes I do wonder where you get this supposedly "encyclopedic knowledge" of humans from.

NATE: Well, I could take the time to explain it to you, but it involves a lot of calculus and quantum physics, so we'd be here forever. Just trust me on this stuff. Hold on ...

(Nate interrupts his speech to pick at the decomposting remains of a weasel. After eating, he wipes his mouth with his left paw.)

NATE: ... but anyways, as I was saying, humans are known as the "garbage disposals of the ecosystem," because they'll eat anything, and I mean ANYTHING. We're talking sparkplugs, antenna balls, bottlecaps, distilled petroleum, Moose burgers, ANYTHING.

ROGER: Dude, you'd better stop it with the moose burgers.

(Nate and Roger and now 50 yards from the Tokunagas. Bill, the father, takes out a guitar and begins to sing campfire songs.)

NATE: Will you listen to that infernal caterwauling. Sounds like a mole rat giving birth to a badger. How, I ask you, HOW is that species still in business? Isn't eugenics or natural selection supposed to take care of the weak, enfeebled, and stupid?

Humans have absolutely no grace, no tail, tiny, slippery paws, eat hippo leftovers ...

... sound like wolverines being eviscerated when they sing ...

... transport themselves in donkey carcasses ...

...build irresponsibly high habitats and CHOOSE to live in them ...

... Yes sir, humans have about as legitimate a right to exist as ...

(Nate's tirade is interrupted by a shout from Marissa, the Tokunaga's youngest daughter. She has spotted Nate and Roger.)

MARISSA: Daddy, Daddy! Look at that ugly raccoon!

NATE: (resentfully as Roger laughs heartily) Savages!

END SCENE

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