I wrote this one back in 2006 based on a prompt from Bonnie Neubauer’s Write Brain Workbook. The prompt was to choose between a list of words for setting, starting phrase and a random word. I chose on a beach, if you must know, and giraffe. I’ve added a bit and cleaned it up tonight but the general gist is the same.

If you must know, my pet giraffe, Leonard, wanted to go to the beach. It’s not my fault that he made a break for the ice cream stand and got into traffic. I tried my best to stop him, but have you ever seen a giraffe in need of a sugar fix? It’s not something you can stop once he gets his mind set on a pint of rocky road.  The backup on Highway 621 was completely unavoidable and could have happened to anyone. Just ask my friend, Suzy. She tried to take her pet lion to the groomer at the mall last year and three people were hurt in the stampede Georgie’s presence caused. At least my pet didn’t cause any trouble. He just stood on the side of the road patiently waiting until I caught up to him.  How I managed to talk the police out of calling animal control after he escorted us back across the highway is beyond me. Maybe it had to do with Leo’s eyelashes. He is quite good at batting them to get what he wants. How else do you think he convinced me to take him home? It certainly wasn’t because I thought the neighbors would want a 18 foot tall ungulate with a 20 inch long prehensile tongue reaching over their fence to deforest their backyard, now was it?