My Wombat Adventure

I walked through the door and threw the wombat down on the counter. The sign above read “Wombats Is We.”

“You freaks sold me a defective wombat,” I said angrily, ill-advisedly using an adverb. “This piece of junk doesn’t even wom. And its batting average is pitiful.”

The disinterested female on the opposite side of the counter stared over my left shoulder, her obvious annoyance at my presence not nearly as maddening as the chomping sounds produced by her vigorous gum-chewing. Her bottle-blonde hair was pulled straight back and knotted at the back her head. So severe was the hair-do, it stretched her face, causing her eyes to bulge with a Lagoon Creature quality. She stamped out a spent Marlboro and lit another.

“So what?” she asked, her beady eyes staring at me through the haze of smoke around her head. “Who do I look like, Cesar Chavez?”

Because I didn’t wish to admit, even to myself, I didn’t understand the comparison, I chose instead to snarl and shove the furry creature nearer. “Listen,” I said. “I need to exchange this wombat for an operable model. My son’s birthday is tomorrow and he’s determined to have a wombat.”

“Kid’s spoiled,” the woman said. “Give ‘im a rake and let ‘im contribute to society.”

“No, you don’t understand,” I said. “Lancelot is very particular about his birthday gifts. Christmas doesn’t faze him, but his birthday present has to be right. And this year he wants—no, demands—a wombat.”

“Wombats scratch.”
“We’ll have it declawed. Assuming they have claws, of course.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then it doesn’t matter. Look, can’t you just exchange it?”
“Gotta receipt?”

I handed her the crumpled paper and she took it, sighing heavily as she opened and smoothed it on the counter.

“Looks like you got it on sale. Can’t give you the sale price, ‘cause it’s over. You’ll have to pay the difference.”

“Wait, that...”
“And you’ll have to buy another Wombat Welcome Packet.”
“But I still have the first one.”
“Tough beans.”

As eager as I was to be done with the entire process, I wasn’t about to let some blonde floozy trample my consumer rights. “I’d like to speak to a manager,” I said, as politely as I could manage.

“You’re doin’ just that,” she said.

“You’re the manager?”

“Kinda slow, ain’t you?” Taking a long drag on the cigarette, she gave a mighty cough and looked at me with what could possibly have been a look of pity. “We don’t take to your kind.”

“My…kind?”
“Morons, idiots, simpletons.”
“But…”
“Shut up.”

It was now obvious I was not going to get a wombat replacement by going through the accepted channels, so I vaulted the counter and stalked toward the back room. Blondie shrieked and started after me, her progress mercifully slowed by her high heels, which were approximately the height of the Washington Monument.

“You can’t go back there!” she screamed. “It’s my private domain!”

“Domain?” I burst through the swinging doors and found myself in a large, warehouse area. Metal shelves lined the walls and wire cages lined the shelves. Each cage contained a single wombat. “Look at this!” I said. “There must be thousands of wombats here! Why can’t you just exchange one?”

For once, Blondie was silent, so I marched over to one of the cages and withdrew a young, squirming wombat. Knowing the battle was lost, the manager watched me go as I exited purposefully through the swinging doors.

It wasn’t until I got the wombat home, placed it inside a mesh holding cage, tied a festive bow around the cage, and began singing “Happy Birthday,” that I realized I had no little boy. Feeling the effects of such an anticlimax, I sighed and peeked into the cage. The baby wombat was sitting in a corner. When he saw me, he smiled brightly and gave me a thumb up. At least…I think it was his thumb.